


The Reminisces of Joan Watson, MD.

by zadigfate



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A Study in Pink, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, Other, The Blind Banker, girl!Watson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-26
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 13:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/369564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zadigfate/pseuds/zadigfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson was tired of life... and she needed a flatmate.</p><p>The adventures of (male) Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Study in Joan

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Sherlock fic. I've recently become really interested in the dynamic between male!Sherlock and fem!Watson, so I thought I'd give it a shot. This chapter was all I had planned in advance, but I'd really like to expand it and go further with their partnership. I'm not sure if this will develop into a pairing fic or not, but I'm approaching it with an open mind.
> 
> It hasn't been Britpicked, so if any Brits would like to chime in with tweaks or corrections, I'll be happy to make any adjustments! Enjoy!

Joan Watson was tired of life.

_When you're tired of Ursa Minor Beta, you're tired of life,_ an unhelpful voice hummed in her mind.  _Suicide rates quadruple overnight_!

_Shut up_ , she thought in irritation.

It was bizarre, the kind of thoughts the mind would pull out to entertain itself when it had nothing to occupy it - and Joan did have nothing to occupy it. Even the dark humour of her subconscious wasn't enough to make it a laughing matter.

She had been someone, once. She had been Joan- _fucking-_ Watson, army doctor. Skilled, needed, respected. People looked up to her; people listened to what she had to say. She gave orders and they were followed to the letter. She had carved out a place for herself in a life-or-death world where she  _mattered_ .

Now she was a pensioner in a run-down London bedsit with a bum leg, a hole through her shoulder, and an intermittent tremor in her dominant hand that meant she would never perform surgery again.

It wasn't easy to earn genuine respect as a woman in the army, but she'd worked for it and dammit, she had earned it. Once, soldiers would salute her when she walked by and call her Captain, or Doctor. Now, as she limped down the busy streets of London with her cane, people would avert their eyes or look at her in pity. She couldn't bear it. She hated to go out. She hated to see the look in their eyes when they watched her, the pitiful petite woman hobbling across the street with her hospital-issued cane.

It was a burst of procrastination, actually, that drove her into the park that day. She had promised herself – and promised her therapist – that she would actually try to write the first post for her blog that day.

"Just introduce yourself," her therapist had told her soothingly. "It doesn't need to be brilliant. Just start off with a bit about who you are."

Who I am, she thought. Who I _was_ , maybe.

_Hello, world. My name is Joan Watson. I used to be someone. I was a doctor. I was in the army. People needed me. Now I'm a crippled pensioner with no purpose in life and parents tell their kids not to stare when I limp by on the street._

She stared at the blank page all morning (afternoon, technically; what did she need to be up for in the mornings, these days?). She started to write but deleted everything each time in a fit of irritation. What was there to say that wouldn't sound either bitter or deluded?

Joan was pulled outside by the same instinct that made her clean her dormitory or alphabetize her CDs when she really ought to be writing her papers back in uni. It was a little voice that said, "You know what you haven't done in a while? Gone to the park. It would be really good for you. Maybe even better than sitting here at the computer screen. You spend too much time on the computer anyways, don't you, Joan? Surely, even your therapist would agree that going out for a bit is much better."

So, determined to do anything to avoid being left alone in her gloomy bedsit with her empty blog for company, she was limping through the park – cursing the sadistic instinct that led her outside – when she ran into Mike Stamford.

"I heard you were abroad somewhere getting shot at," he chided. "What happened?"

She shrugged. "Got shot."

The awkwardness of the moment that followed was palpable, but it left Joan with a strangely satisfied feeling while she watched Stamford struggle to find something to say.

Even if Stamford wasn't her favourite former classmate, it was refreshing to talk to another human being that wasn't her therapist or her sister, for once. She was terrible at small talk, having spent too much time alone since coming back to London. They exchanged a few remarks about the city – the city that she would probably have to leave soon, once she could work up the motivation to look for a proper living arrangement within her means. She laughed outright when he brought up the idea of a flatmate.

"Come on. Who'd want me for a flatmate?"

He chuckled, apparently recalling some private joke.

"What?" she demanded.

"You're the second person to say that to me today."

She paused. "Who was the first?"

"Oh, just some bloke down at Bart's."

She waited, but he had nothing else to add. "Well?" she prodded.

"Well, what?"

"It's worth looking into, isn't it? Do you think you could introduce me?"

"Oh." He paused, and gave her an awkward laugh. "Well, I wasn't actually proposing anything. It was just a bit funny, you know? What are the odds?"

"Why not, though? It's a fair idea."

"Well," he said awkwardly, not sure how to phrase his objection. "He's a _bloke_ , isn't he? Besides, you wouldn't want Sherlock Holmes for a flatmate, anyway. He's sort of a weird fellow. Not – well, he's not a shifty person or anything, but you wouldn't want to live with him."

She was a bit irritated by his presumption. "It doesn't matter to me that he's a bloke," she snapped. "I don't care either way; a flatshare is a flatshare. Besides, if he's at Bart's, we'll at least have something in common. What is he, a medical student? Why wouldn't I want to live with him?"

"No reason," said Stamford quickly. "He's just a bit... eccentric, that's all. I don't know if you'd really get along. I'm not sure what he does, either. He's not a student or a doctor, but he's always in the chemistry labs. Doing experiments of some sort, I suppose. He's extremely dedicated to his work, whatever it is."

"All the better," she said firmly. "It's just after lunch; would he be there now? I might as well meet the man and see what he has to offer. If we don't get on, well, we don't get on."

Stamford sighed, but relented.

She wasn't even sure why she was so insistent on seeing this through, she reflected, as they made their way (slowly, owing to her leg) to the hospital. Maybe she was just eager to meet someone new, someone with whom she might share a common interest in medicine. Or perhaps she was just stubborn. It actually had bothered her that Stamford would automatically assume she wouldn't want to room with a bloke. She was in the army, for god's sake. She was used to being in close quarters with men and had no problems living with them. No point in discarding a perfectly good flatshare because it involved a man.

Stamford had just led her into one of the chemistry labs – so high tech now, god did it make her feel old – when the sole occupant, who was conducting an experiment with some liquid substance (blood?), had asked to borrow his phone.

"And what's wrong with the landline?" said Mike, irritation showing through his voice.

"I prefer to text," the man said, turning back to his experiment.

"Sorry," Stamford replied. "Left it in my coat."

"Here," said Joan, pulling her phone from her jeans pocket. "Use mine."

The stranger looked up at her in surprise, as if he hadn't noticed her presence. "Oh," he said. His eyes flicked up and down over her. "Thank you."

"Old classmate of mine," said Stamford, as the stranger approached. "Joan Watson."

He didn't seem too bad, Joan thought approvingly, as she leaned over to pass him her phone. Not her type – though that was for the best, anyway, if they did end up sharing a flat – but definitely very good-looking. And he seemed to have at least some base level of manners. Really, why was Stamford so reluctant to introduce them?

He snapped open the keyboard of her phone. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Sorry?" The mention of Afghanistan gave her a start. She looked to Stamford, who gave her what she assumed was a look of pity, or perhaps of apology.

"Where were you stationed," said the man, slightly more impatiently. "Afghanistan or Iraq?"

"Afghanistan... sorry, how did you...?"

A woman – medical student? doctor? - rushed in at that moment with a cup of coffee for the strange man, interrupting Joan's enquiry. The woman was obviously quite infatuated with the man, and he gave her a brush-off that Joan felt was rather cold. The woman accepted it meekly and scurried off. Joan was starting to see how Stamford had found the man disagreeable.

An awkward silence fell over the lab after the other woman had left. Joan thought she ought to say something, but the man was Stamford's colleague, after all, and he had promised to introduce them. She gave him an irritated look until finally he turned and addressed his colleague.

"Sherlock," he started, "We were actually hoping to talk to you--"

"Oh?" The man turned around, and once again swept a sharp eye over Joan. "I suppose," he began warily, "that this might be about the flat?"

"Yes. Joan and I were just talking today about a flatshare, and, well, your name came up..."

"I see."

Joan wondered, suddenly, if the man's hesitance had something to do with her gender. She didn't really care for the sex of her flatmate, but perhaps _he_ did. A jealous girlfriend, maybe, or perhaps he just didn't want to live with a woman. His eyes had returned to her in the meantime and were examining her critically. She stared back with equal intensity.

To her surprise, he relaxed after just a moment. "So," he said. "How do you feel about the violin?"

*

As the black car pulled away from the bedsit where it had just dropped her off, Joan reflected on her situation. The man she might move in with, this Sherlock Holmes, was apparently some kind of psychopath according to that female officer at the crime scene. Joan wasn't sure she quite believed that, but Sherlock did seem a bit _too_ excited by the prospect of a serial killer (and the colour pink, evidently). He was definitely eccentric. She had felt his attention on her the whole time at the crime scene, as if he were sizing her up. Perhaps the whole excursion was some bizarre test to see if she could stand living with him... or some elaborate scheme to scare her off.

Then there was this mysterious "arch-enemy" of Sherlock's to consider. True, he hadn't done anything to really intimidate her (although he did make a show of demonstrating his control over the CCTV cameras and access to her medical and military records), but she had to be wary of moving in with anyone that might collect "arch-enemies". What was Sherlock doing that it would be worth paying someone to spy on him, anyway? Was sniffing around crime scenes such a clandestine profession?

When the driver of the car had asked where she wanted to be dropped off, she hesitated in her response. Was she really planning to move into a flat with this man that was possibly a psychopath, and had at least one confirmed enemy who was powerful enough to control the CCTV cameras? In the end, she asked to be taken back to her bedsit. She needed time to think.

Joan opened the door to her room – it looked so much smaller, after her time in 221B today – and sat on the small bed. It was quiet. She realized, with surprise, that this was the quietest her day had been since meeting Sherlock to have a look at the flat. Just yesterday, life was empty and boring and _dull_. Today, it wasn't even particularly late in the evening and she had already visited a possible flat, been dragged to a crime scene on the other side of London, and been kidnapped (if she could call it that) by a mysterious man claiming to be the arch-enemy of her potential flatmate.

Yes, she reflected. Living with Sherlock might be _dangerous_ .

She had opened the drawer and was running her fingers over her gun before she realized what she was doing. She picked it up and held it as if she meant to fire, with the safety engaged, of course. It felt _right_ in her hands. It wasn't very long ago that she had been cleaning it carefully on the table, wondering in her state of depression if she would ever have the chance to use it properly again. The thought had left her feeling... castrated.

She lifted her head again and looked around at her room. It was small, it was quiet. She could move in with Sherlock, the madman, who was running around London investigating murders and collecting arch-enemies... and if not, she could stay here in this shabby place, spending her days locked up inside browsing the internet and not writing for her blog.

It was an obvious choice, wasn't it?

She packed a small bag of clothes and toiletries suitable for a one-night stay. The room was far too depressing, and she was eager to get back to the interesting life of Sherlock Holmes. If he had already moved in, surely it wouldn't be a problem for her to take the upstairs room for the night. Besides, she reasoned, she really ought to tell him about her encounter with that arch-enemy of his. She pulled on a coat long enough to hide the gun that she tucked into the back of her trousers. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she was stepping into a world of murders and arch-enemies... if she was going back there, she wanted to feel prepared for anything.

Joan limped out into the street with her small bag and hailed a cab. Before the driver could enquire, she gave her directions: "221B Baker Street, please."

*

Joan was let in the front door by Mrs Hudson, who informed her that Sherlock was just upstairs, having recently returned from wherever he had run off to when he deserted Joan at the crime scene in Brixton. She made her way slowly up the stairs and knocked on the door of flat B.

"Come in," the now-familiar deep voice called from the other side of the door.

She opened the door to find Sherlock sitting in a peculiar fashion on one of the armchairs, his hands pressed together under his chin, staring very intensely at a freakishly pink suitcase. He didn't even turn to look at her as he said, "Ah, Joan, good timing. I need to borrow your phone. Can't use mine, always a concern that the number might be recognized. It's on the website."

Joan, however, was distracted by the suitcase, and her mind was racing back to the his words at the crime scene. She dropped her small bag on the floor. Her eyes widened. "That's – the case! The pink lady's case!"

"Yes, obviously." Sherlock finally looked up at her and noted the expression on her face. "Oh, perhaps I should mention, _I_ didn't kill her," he said, rolling his eyes.

"I didn't think--"

"Why not? I did say that the killer would have her case, it's a perfectly _logical_ assumption."

"But where did you get it?"

"Ah," he smiled. He seemed to remember that Joan had appreciated his deduction on the taxi ride to Brixton. "I simply looked for it. It wasn't hard; no one could be seen with this case without drawing attention to themselves, particularly a man, which is statistically more likely. He would have had to get rid of it. I searched every back-alley wide enough for a car where one could dispose of a large object five minutes from Lauriston Gardens. Took me less than an hour to find the right skip."

"Amazing!" said Joan, not bothering to disguise her enthusiasm. "You got all that from realizing that the case would have to be pink?"

He gave her a severe look. " _Obviously_ it would have to be pink. Your phone, Joan."

"Ah – right." She pulled it out of her coat and held it out for him, but he didn't reach to take it.

"I need you to send a text to the number on my desk. These words exactly: 'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must have blacked out. 22 Northumberland Street, please come.'"

"Um, sure," she said. "Hang on..." She limped to the desk and started looking through the papers for anything resembling a phone number. Thankfully, she found it near the top. The number was labelled 'Jennifer Wilson'... why did that name sound familiar? "I met a friend of yours today, by the way," she added while she composed the number.

"A friend?" Sherlock turned to look at her with genuine surprise on his face.

"An enemy," she corrected.

"Ah," he settled down. "Which one?"

"Er – he called himself your 'arch-enemy'. Who is he?"

"The most dangerous man you'll ever meet and not my problem right now. Have you sent it?"

"Just a moment." Joan finished typing in the address and sent the text. "There. So, what was that about?"

Sherlock gave a pained sigh, and looked at her with something like pity. _What must it be like in your slow little brains?_ She could almost hear it out loud. "Had you not noticed that anything was missing from the case?"

She admitted that she hadn't really given it a good look.

"Her _phone_. It wasn't on the body, it isn't in the case. Highest probability says the murderer has it."

Joan suddenly remembered why the name on the paper had seemed familiar. "Oh! Jennifer Wilson is – wait, then who did I just text?"

Her phone began to ring. Joan looked at the display but the number was blocked.

Sherlock gave a cry of excitement and leapt off the chair, slamming the pink suitcase shut. He raced to the door to pull on his coat and scarf.

"Wait, where are you going?" said Joan, not sure how to process this development.

"22 Northumberland Street!"

"What? But why?"

"To catch the murderer, I hope."

"You're planning to meet him there? Alone?" cried Joan.

"Yes." He looked at her while he looped his scarf around his neck. "Unless... you'd like to come? Could be dangerous, though."

Joan felt the warm weight of the gun against her lower back. Sherlock was rushing off to potentially meet a murderer – not just a simple murderer, but a serial killer. For such an intelligent person, he could be such an idiot. He wasn't even armed. How had this man lived to see his thirties, running out to meet murderers without an accomplice or even a weapon?

"Yeah." she said. "I'd love to."

He gave her the first real smile that she had seen from him yet. It was full of excitement and inspired at least partially by pleasant surprise at her answer. "Terrific," he said. "So then. Dinner?"

*

Joan held back her sigh as the restaurant owner – Angelo, Sherlock had called him – placed a lit candle in the middle of their table and gave her a thumbs-up before disappearing into the kitchen. She had a feeling that this might happen a lot if she did move in with Sherlock. Sherlock himself had barely noticed the interaction but shoved a menu in her direction, staring through the window over her shoulder the entire time.

He wasn't speaking to her, so she decided to force conversation with something that had been on her mind. "People don't have arch-enemies, you know," she said, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Hm? They don't?" He sounded distracted. "That sounds boring. What do normal people have then, in their... _normal_ lives?"

She shrugged. "People they like, people they don't like, friends, acquaintances, boyfriends, girlfriends..." she trailed off, and let that lead her into another line of enquiry that she had been curious about. "Do you have one? A girlfriend, I mean?"

"Hm? No. Girlfriend... not really my area."

"Oh." She mentally filed him in her 'not-straight' list. "So, you have a boyfriend, then?"

"No."

"Single, then? Like me," she added, trying to be conversational.

Sherlock stiffened and looked away from the window at last, giving her a wary look. "Joan..." he began, "You ought to know – I consider myself married to my work, and while I'm flattered by your interest..."

"What?" she said, confused. "What? No, no – I'm not... that's not what I'm trying to do. All I'm saying is, it's fine. It's _all_ fine."

"Ah," he said. He relaxed a little, but still regarded her with an element of distance. "Thank you."

They were silent for a moment. Sherlock's sudden discomfort at the mention of relationships had brought something else to Joan's mind, a suspicion that she'd held since they'd first met in the lab at St Bart's. He seemed to appreciate straightforwardness, so she decided on a blunt approach.

"Listen, Sherlock," she started. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Haven't you been, though?"

"Something a bit more personal."

He turned to look at her again, wariness returning to his expression. Whatever could be more personal than his relationship status clearly unnerved him. But he didn't raise any objections, so Joan continued.

"Are you really all right having me as a flatmate, or are you just being polite?"

He seemed momentarily surprised by the question. "I have no objections. I would not have led you on this far if I did not fully intend on living with you. You have at least a moderate level of intelligence, tidy habits bred by the military, no doubt, you don't prattle on about pointless things, and you appear tolerant of my... more eccentric habits."

She was reasonably pleased with the answer, but he did skate around what she perceived to be the main issue. "You know what I mean, though, Sherlock. Do you... well, would you rather live with another bloke?"

"It makes no difference to me."

"Really?" she pressed. "Because you seemed quite hesitant to consider it back in the lab."

"All right," he said, turning to look her in the eye. "To be honest, yes, I had thought that I would prefer the company of another male. I wished to avoid... complications. I told you I consider myself married to my work, and I didn't want to live with a flatmate that might..." he hesitated.

"What, try to get with you? You could have ended up rooming with a gay or bisexual man, you know. We women haven't got a monopoly on attraction."

"Yes, but the probability was better that – well, it doesn't matter. You're right. I had not considered the possibility of living with a woman until you presented yourself. I did not think it would be... desirable, to either party. But I could see, in the lab, that you would be bearable to live with."

"What, does my haircut scream _lesbian_? Or was it the buttons on my shirt?" she asked sarcastically.

Sherlock smirked. "Oh, no. It's quite obvious from the state of your fingernails that you are heterosexual... at least, most of the time." She blushed. "But you are intelligent, and you have a strong personality, no doubt augmented by your military background. You were open to the idea of living with a male, so I knew you were at least reasonably tolerant. My preliminary assessment was confirmed earlier when you showed no hesitation or disgust accompanying me to the crime scene. You know that I have a powerful enemy and yet you returned to the flat this evening anyway. I warned you that this endeavour might be dangerous, yet here you are. All the available evidence indicates that Joan Watson would be a perfectly reasonable woman to live with."

Joan seemed satisfied with this answer. "Thanks, Sherlock," she said. "Happy to hear it." She paused. "Maybe you'll even give it a second thought next time before you write off someone for lacking testicles, yeah?"

"Yes, I suppose in retrospect that it was a bit of an oversight. In any case, I'm perfectly satisfied to share a flat with you, Joan, if you are amenable."

She smiled. He responded with merely a tug at the corner of his lips, but she was pleased to see it nonetheless. The moment didn't last long, however, because his head immediately snapped to attention to observe something through the window.

" _There_ ," he said, "No, no – don't look! There's a cab there, in front of the address. It's been stalled there for the last few minutes. But why a cab?"

" _You're_ looking!" she said indignantly.

"We can't both look," he said, already reaching for his coat. "Come on."

She barely had time to grab her own coat before he was racing out the door, Joan not far behind. The cab had sped off by the time they reached the curb.

"I got the cab number," she panted, coming up beside Sherlock.

"Good for you," he said. He had bent his head forward, hands in front of his forehead, mumbling quickly to himself – something about one-way streets, turn signals, construction areas... and then he was running across the busy street, shouting at her to follow. Joan waved apologetically at the irate motorists and ran after the madman as he ducked into an alleyway.

*

Forty minutes later they were bursting through the front door of 221, gasping for air and leaning against the wall for support.

"God," Joan breathed. "That was the craziest, most insane thing I've ever done."

"And you invaded Afghanistan," Sherlock replied.

That was enough to send them both into a mutual fit of laughter. Joan felt so _good_ right now, catching her breath and sharing a laugh with this lunatic that had just dragged her on a wild chase through the backstreets and rooftops of London. She looked at Sherlock and grinned; he returned it with a brilliant smile. _I'm going to like living here,_ she realized. _I needed this._

"Mrs Hudson," Sherlock called into the hall. "Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs."

She had already made up her mind, but couldn't resist the chance to prod him a bit for his presumption. Besides, there was her bum leg to consider, and she didn't fancy limping up two flights of stairs every day. "Says who?" she chided.

"Says the man at the door," he replied, with another smile. The knock sounded an instant later and she looked at him with surprise before moving to answer the door. Was the man _genuinely_ psychic? She was even more surprised to see Angelo on their doorstop.

"Sherlock texted me," he explained. "You forgot this." In his hands was her cane – her _cane_!

Her jaw literally fell open as she reached out to take it. She tried to say something to thank him but the words wouldn't come; all that tumbled out was a gasp of astonishment and relief. She looked back at Sherlock, who was grinning at her in pride from the base of the staircase. _Thank you_ , she wanted to say, but she wasn't sure what for. Angelo gave her a wink and stepped off the threshold into the night.

She turned back to Sherlock to say a word of genuine thanks, but she was interrupted by Mrs Hudson, who came rushing out of her flat, moaning, "Sherlock, what have you done?"

Joan and Sherlock exchanged a look and rushed upstairs. Sherlock threw open the doors to their flat. Sitting on a comfortable chair in the middle of their flat like a goddamn Bond villain with a smug look on his face was DI Lestrade. Around him, a gang of Yarders were tearing apart their flat.

"What are you doing? You can't just break into my flat," Sherlock hissed.

"Well, I'm not stupid," Lestrade replied, waving an arm in irritation. "I knew you'd find the case. Anyway, I didn't break into your flat. "It's..." he paused. "It's a drugs bust."

"Seriously?" said Joan, letting a bit of her laughter slip into her voice. "This guy, a junkie? Have you _met_ him?"

She expected Sherlock to fly into a rage and throw them out of the flat, but instead he turned and said in a hushed voice, "Joan--"

But she wasn't finished with Lestrade. "I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day and you wouldn't find anything you might call ' _recreational_ '."

Sherlock leaned in close. "Joan, you probably want to shut up, _now_."

She turned to look at him. "Yeah, but--" And she stopped. The look in his eyes was cold and serious. Her own eyes widened and then narrowed as she reassessed him with this new information. "No..."

"What?"

" _You_ ," she said, staring up at him in surprise and... disappointment.

"Shut up," he snapped. He spun around immediately to tell off the Yarders that were ruining his experiments in the kitchen. He was even angrier to see Donovan and Anderson among them, and struck up a bitter argument with Lestrade.

Joan sighed and picked up a bare cushion from the floor, stuffing it into its case and placing it back on the couch so she had a place to sit. For a "pretend" drugs bust, they were being awfully thorough. She supposed that a lot of the officers were just pleased for an excuse to tear into Sherlock's flat. It was a good thing she had taken her gun with her to the restaurant, then.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the eruption of a confrontation between Sherlock and Anderson, who were tearing into each other with what seemed to be the usual barbs. She hadn't heard the start but she heard Sherlock insist that he was a high-functioning sociopath, not a psychopath, and would Anderson leave because his stupidity was probably contaminating the flat?

_Sociopath_ , she thought. She wasn't sure she bought that. She thought of the genuine smile on Sherlock's face when Angelo had handed her the cane just moments ago. A sociopath's eyes wouldn't have shone with pride like that...

And then Lestrade was talking about Rachel and Sherlock was arguing with him and as she stood up to involve herself, Joan had the feeling that it would be a long night.

*

"So, the shooter, no sign?"

Sherlock was sitting in the back of the ambulance, still tugging with irritation at the ugly blanket thrown over his shoulders.

Lestrade shook his head. "Cleared off before we got here. But a guy like that would have had enemies, I suppose. One of them could have been following him, but... we've got nothing to go on."

A slow smile spread across Sherlock's face. "Oh, I wouldn't say that."

Lestrade knew that look all too well and couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Okay, gimme."

That was all it took for Sherlock to go off like a gun with one of his rapidfire deductions: "The bullet you just dug out of the wall was from a handgun. Kill-shot over that distance from that kind of a weapon, that's a crack shot you're looking for. But not just a marksman, a fighter; his hands couldn't have shaken at all, so clearly he's acclimatized to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger, though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service, and... nerves of steel..." he trailed off unexpectedly, prompting Lestrade to look at him curiously.

Sherlock caught only a glimpse of his prospective flatmate on the other side of the police line at first, but it snagged something in his mind that gave him pause, and as he turned for a proper look, his face filled with scepticism and disbelief, and then realisation, as the pieces seemed to fall into place...

_Always something. I always miss something_.

She caught his gaze briefly and looked away.

It took him only an instant to process this information and make his decision.

"Actually, you know what," he said, turning back to Lestrade, "Ignore me."

"Sorry?" said Lestrade, raising an eyebrow.

"Ignore all of that, it's just the, er... the shock talking." He began to walk away.

"Where are you going?"

"I just need to talk about, er, the rent..." he mumbled, his attention elsewhere. "What do you want? I'm in shock, look, I've got a blanket!"

"Sherlock!" cried Lestrade, as if scolding a child.

"—And, I just caught you a serial killer!" he pointed out. "More or less."

Lestrade eyed him sceptically before apparently resigning himself to the idea that Sherlock would always get his way. "All right," he nodded. "We'll put you in tomorrow. Off you go."

Sherlock made straight for the woman waiting for him, tearing off the blanket and throwing through the open window of an empty squad car. Joan let out a short laugh as he dipped under the police line to join her.

"I've just been having a chat with Sally – Sergeant Donovan," she corrected, restraining her smile. "She's been explaining it to me. Two pills, yeah? Dreadful business, just dreadful."

Sherlock looked down at her with a mixture of amusement and another emotion that was unreadable.

"Good shot, Joan."

Well, she honestly never expected that she would fool Sherlock. Still, she thought she ought to make a token effort to play dumb, so she controlled her expression and responded as casually as possible: "Yes, must have been, through that window."

"Well, you'd know."

She looked up at him, trying to read the expression on his face. She'd only known the man for a bit more than twenty-four hours, and had no idea how he liked to wrap up his cases. Would he be satisfied just to know, or would he feel compelled to see the matter through the proper channels of justice?

In an instant, his tone softened. "We'll need to get the powder burns out of your fingers back at the flat." He looked around for nearby officers. "I don't expect you'd serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case, shall we?"

She nodded, and the bit of tension that had been building in her chest melted away. Sherlock was looking at her intently and she turned away.

"Are you all right, Joan?" he asked.

Her head snapped back in an instant, her eyes widening in surprise and – if she could be honest – a bit of disbelief that Sherlock might really care about the answer. But to her surprise, there was a flicker of genuine concern (and – curiosity?) beneath the stoic mask.

"You have just killed a man," he explained.

Joan met his eyes. "Well, yes. I know." She hesitated and looked away. She didn't want to brush it off as a trivial incident, because obviously it wasn't; she was a doctor and a soldier, and she knew exactly what it meant to take a life. But she genuinely _wasn't_ distraught over the matter, and even more, she didn't want her choice weighing down on Sherlock's conscience, if he had one (and already, she believed that he did).

He looked at her curiously, perhaps trying to deduce the response from the expression on her face (or the buttons on her jacket; really, who knew?). He seemed unsure about what he found there.

"He wasn't a very _nice_ man," she said finally.

"No," Sherlock echoed, his tone pensive, as if really considering that bit for the first time. "No, he wasn't, really, was he?"

She couldn't resist adding: "Frankly, a bloody awful cabbie."

Sherlock's expression lifted and he gave her the first laugh that she had heard since their rooftop chase through London earlier that evening. His tone was lighter, more friendly, and he said, "That's true, he _was_ a bad cabbie. You should have seen the route he took to get us here."

She burst out with a short fit of giggles before she could subdue herself as they began to walk away. "Stop it, Sherlock, stop – we can't giggle, it's a crime scene!"

He was still grinning. "You're the one who shot him, not me."

"Shh, keep your voice down!" she giggled. "Sorry," she added quickly, to one of the nearby officers giving them a queer look. "Sorry, it's just, um, nerves... right." She turned to exchange another smile with Sherlock and something came to mind. "Hey, you were going to take that damn pill, weren't you?"

"'Course I wasn't," said Sherlock, and the eye roll was audible in his tone. "I was biding my time." He paused, and turned to look at her. "Knew you'd turn up."

It was so ridiculous that she actually snorted. "No you _didn't._ That's how you get your kicks, isn't it? You risk your life to prove you're clever."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because you're an idiot."

Sherlock looked surprised for only a moment before a wide smile spread across his face. He looked off for a minute, his mind racing. But all he came up with was: "Dinner?"

She smiled. "Yes! I'm starving."

"We'll head back to Baker Street, there's a good Chinese that stays open 'til two." He paused. "Mrs Hudson already has sheets on the bed upstairs. You can sleep there tonight, if you like, and we'll move your things tomorrow morning." He hesitated again, and then added, "If you're still taking the flat?"

"I don't know," she said gravely. "I've got quite a charming setup at that bedsit."

The corner of his mouth twitched upward in what she was beginning to recognize as an appreciative gesture; his ' _you're not entirely uninteresting_ ' smile. She broke her deadpan expression to return the sentiment.

"So," he continued after a moment. "Dim Sum?"

"Mm, can't wait."

"I can always predict the fortune cookies."

"No you can't," she scoffed.

"Almost can."

Joan laughed. She hadn't felt this happy in a long time – not since Afghanistan, at the very least. She was looking forward to this, she realized. She was looking forward to what her new and _interesting_ life with Sherlock Holmes would look like. Even when the approach of a familiar black car caught her eye, her smile didn't falter for a moment. It would just make life more interesting.


	2. The Berk Banker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I initially planned to combine The Blind Banker and The Great Game into one chapter, but it sort of got away with me. I'm still pretty happy with it though. I will definitely be continuing, but don't worry - it won't just be a reiteration of the canonical episodes. As the story goes on I will tackle some other cases as well. :D Enjoy!

Joan stomped home with her empty canvas bags in hand, absolutely fuming. This was one of the problems with leaving the country for so long: so much had changed in such a short time. One incomplete tour in Afghanistan and the cashiers at Tesco had been replaced with machines. Clearly technology had marched on in her absence, and frankly, she would much prefer that it turn around and march right back.

As she climbed the stairs to the flat, she saw through the open door that Sherlock was sitting in the exact same place as when she had left that morning. It _irritated_ her.

"You took your time," said Sherlock, not glancing up from his book.

"Yeah, I didn't get the shopping," she grunted.

"What?" That got his attention. "Why not?"

"Because I had a row in the shop with the chip and pin machine," she snapped, throwing the bags back to the table.

"You – what? You had a row... with a machine?"

"Sort of, it sat there and I shouted abuse at it. Have you got any cash?"

He nodded in the direction of the kitchen table. "Take my card."

Joan wondered briefly if it was weird that she knew the pin to her flatmate's debit card after barely a month and a half of living together. Still, she wasn't finished with him. "You could always go yourself, you know," she said. "You've just been sitting there all morning, you've barely moved since I left."

His eyes clouded over for a moment and then returned to his book. His only reply was a mere sigh of acknowledgement.

Joan huffed and turned away. When she had first moved in with Sherlock, she had insisted on creating a schedule for domestic duties like shopping and laundry that had them dividing the household tasks equally. That plan fell apart quickly, partly due to the erratic work schedules that Sherlock kept (no chores were done while he was on a case – it just didn't happen), but more due to Sherlock's blasé attitude toward domestic responsibilities and his lack of interest in doing them properly. What Sherlock thought of as "cleaning the loo" was nowhere close to Joan's idea of the same, and if she sent him off to do the shopping, she could hardly count on him to return with something edible.

Either he really was that inept, or he really was that devious, but she had resigned herself to doing most of the chores around the house... though she did occasionally bully him into picking up around the sitting room between cases.

Joan noticed a new nick in the table – probably the result of a scalpel or knife or some other sharp object from Sherlock's experiments – and muttered to herself in disgust. _Honestly_. This man was impossible.

*

Living with Sherlock was, thankfully, more interesting than it was infuriating, at least most days. It had been a long time since she'd had a flatshare, though of course she'd been sharing quarters with her fellow soldiers in the army. Still, she didn't remember her past flatshares being quite so... involved.

Perhaps Mycroft had been right when he observed that Joan was very loyal, very quickly. In her previous flatshares, although they shared a space, Joan and her flatmates kept their possessions quite separate and each had their own social spheres. They had rarely even shared meals, they bought their own food, and they had their own shelves in the refrigerator. Living with Sherlock was a lot more communal, if only because he had the audacity to just pick up whatever was closest and most convenient, to hell with who it happened to belong to.

But even so. They pooled their groceries every week and generally ate their meals together (otherwise Joan feared he wouldn't eat at all or would try to live purely on takeout). They worked together and shared a social circle, as restricted as that circle might be. Their precise financial wranglings of the first week had evolved into a generalized sense of reciprocity, and they fell into a comfortable assumption that things would even out in the end and it wasn't worth counting pennies against each other in the meantime.

Joan wasn't uncomfortable with their developing flatmate dynamic - quite the opposite - but it just seemed awfully _fast_.

And that was just their relationship as flatmates. There were an incomprehensible number of other odd things about life with Sherlock that were frequently weighing on her mind.

The experiments, for one. Particularly the ones involving _body parts_.

Coming across an unexpected toe or vital organ could still spook the hell out of her when she came down for a midnight snack, but she liked to think that she coped with the human remains in the fridge rather well.

It had driven her crazy enough at first that she thought about leaving boxes of tampons around the flat in retaliation. If he could keep bloody _thumbs_ in the crisper, she would damn well populate the flat with as many pink razors and scented candles as she could find. Maybe she ought to start on the Nuvaring just so she could keep it in the refrigerator near his experiments – sort of a pitiful " _so there_ " for every time she found eyeballs next to the grapes.

She amused herself with thoughts like that, but she was just not passive-aggressive enough to carry them out. That and she didn't think it would phase Sherlock in the slightest. He was free of most general societal hangups regarding human bodies, other than sex, though he more than made up for it with his many Sherlock-specific hangups (like speaking on the telephone) that completely puzzled her.

Anyway, despite what she had been told by Stamford, Sergeant Donovan, and even the man's own brother, Sherlock Holmes was not so unbearable to live with. If he was, at least he was interesting enough the rest of the time to make up for it. And really, right now, that was what Joan needed most.

*

Joan gazed around the interior of the brilliant glass skyscraper with wonder. "Sherlock, when you said we were going to the bank... not really what I had in mind."

Sherlock didn't say anything, but marched forward to identify himself at the front desk. Evidently he was expected, as they were immediately led to wait in one of the private offices. They were only left waiting for ten minutes, but it was enough time for Joan to guess by their surroundings that whoever Sherlock had come to meet was _very_ important.

A posh-looking banker walked in with an outstretched hand and a smile on his face. "Sherlock Holmes!"

"Sebastian," Sherlock greeted him, taking his hand.

"How are you, buddy? How long has it been, eight years since I last saw you?"

_Buddy_ ? Joan tried not to let the surprise show on her face. But apparently it wouldn't have mattered, as this Sebastian bloke didn't spare as much as a glance in her direction.

Sherlock just forced a smile in response, saying nothing.

"Need anything?" Sebastian continued, walking around his desk to his chair, and Joan noticed that the question was not ' _Can I get you anything?_ '. "Water? Coffee?"

"We'll be fine, thanks," she said, when Sherlock didn't answer.

Her words seemed to alert his attention to her presence for the first time and he turned to look at her. "Ah, yes," he said. His tone was overly polite, yet still managed to convey the unspoken question: _what are you doing here?_ "And you are...?"

"My  _friend_ ," Sherlock cut in. "Joan Watson."

" _Friend_ ?" said Sebastian, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Joan saw his smirk as he glanced from one to the other. Joan felt irritation bubble up in her at his implication. She would  _not_ play the tag-along girlfriend.

"Colleague," she said coolly, making the point of her presence known.

Sebastian looked back to Sherlock with something of smugness on his face. "Ah. Nice."

Sherlock immediately tried to change the subject. "So, you're doing well," he said casually. "Spending a lot of time abroad. Flying all the way around the world twice in a month?"

"Right," Sebastian said, laughing a bit uncomfortably. "You're doing that thing, aren't you? That trick?"

"It's... not a trick." Sherlock looked offended.

"Oh, I remember," Sebastian grinned. "We absolutely hated you for it at uni."

_A bit harsh_ , Joan thought. Even  _she_ felt stung by that comment. She caught the most fleeting of expressions on Sherlock's face that indicated he had not been unaffected.

"Go on then," he continued. "Enlighten me. Flying all the way around the world twice in a month? You're quite right, but how could you tell? Was it a stain on my tie from a certain type of ketchup you can only find in Manhattan?"

"No, I--"

"Or maybe it was the mud on my shoes?"

Sherlock looked at him with a disapproving expression. "I was just chatting with your secretary outside. She told me."

There was a moment of awkward silence and Joan tried hard not to smirk. She had been with Sherlock the whole time and he hadn't exchanged two words with the secretary. In fact, it was Joan that eventually greeted her in apology for Sherlock's coldness.

Sebastian finally started to laugh. He clapped his hands together. "Well, I'm glad you could make it over here," he started. "We've had a break-in."

*

Joan wouldn't dare ask Sherlock to confirm her suspicions, but she was desperately curious about his history with Sebastian. Their whole interaction had just seemed awkward in a way that meeting old university mates shouldn't be. Of course, meeting old university mates could have a whole awkwardness of its own, but this seemed different somehow. More _potent;_ more _bitter_.

She still didn't know anything about Sherlock's relationship history or even his sexual orientation, after all. After their first dinner at Angelo's, she had been certain that he was gay. Living with him had confirmed his lack of interest in women, but she was starting to wonder if he were genuinely asexual. He had really not been exaggerating when he said he was married to his work.

As for the tension with Sebastian, Joan told herself that she was probably reading too much into it. It was likely that they'd merely been a part of the same college at – well, where _had_ Sherlock gone to school? Oxbridge, no doubt; Sebastian might be in finance, but she could hardly imagine Sherlock as one of the LSE crowd. Both had probably thought the other an arrogant prick, and now it was Sebastian who was rich and powerful and Sherlock who, though successful in many deeper ways, was a mere behind-the-scenes consultant living in a flatshare with an army pensioner. Surely, the feeling she picked up on was no more than Sherlock's irritation that such a complete berk had actually gone on to become so powerful.

Unsurprisingly, upon hearing from his PA that Sebastian was out at a dinner meeting, Sherlock was quite eager to gatecrash it with the news that the trader Eddie van Coon had been murdered in his flat. The PA refused to give them the location, but it didn't take Sherlock more than a few minutes to deduce three possible restaurants in the City based on their expense, level of prestige, and proximity to the bank. They successfully intercepted the dining bankers at the second location they tried.

There didn't seem to be much formal business going on at the table, but Joan supposed that in the world of high finance, making nice and endearing yourself to your clients and fellow traders _was_ part of the job. It was more about networking than anything else.

Sherlock burst in on the meeting with a characteristically blunt update, completely ignoring the company and the inappropriate nature of his outburst. "It was a threat, that's what the graffiti meant," he said, strolling up to the table as if he wasn't approaching some of the most powerful men in the City.

"Er," said Sebastian, fork halfway to his mouth, clearly shocked and (justly) annoyed by the intrusion. "We're kind of in a meeting right now, can't you make an appointment with my secretary?"

"I don't think this can wait. Sorry, Sebastian," said Sherlock, enjoying himself far too much for the context. "One of your traders, someone who worked in your office, was killed last night."

"What?" said Sebastian, suddenly sitting up straight.

"Van Coon," Joan added, irritated again that Sebastian had not bothered to acknowledge her with even a nod. "The police are at his flat."

"But he was _killed_?" he echoed.

"Sorry to interfere with everyone's digestion," Sherlock sneered. "Still care to make an appointment? Would, maybe, nine o'clock at _Scotland Yard_ suit?" He was definitely enjoying this too much.

Sebastian excused himself from the table and ushered the two of them outside to a corner of the restaurant terrace, which was not terribly busy, given the overcast sky. He was evidently shaken by the death of his coworker.

"Tell us all you can about van Coon," Sherlock demanded.

Sebastian didn't look at them but fiddled with the cuffs of his suit. "He went to Harrow and Oxford," he said quietly. "Very bright guy. Worked in Asia for a while, so..."

"You gave him the Hong Kong accounts," finished Joan.

Sebastian sighed. "Lost five mil in a single morning, made it all back a week later. Nerves of steel, Eddie had..."

Sherlock was silent, so Joan pressed on. "Who would want to kill him?"

"We all make enemies," he said dismissively.

"You don't all end up with a bullet through your temple," Joan pointed out.

"Not usually," he said, continuing to look straight ahead. His Blackberry beeped and he reached into his pocket to retrieve it. He frowned as he read the message on the screen. "It's my chairman," he said. "The police have been up to see him. They're telling him it was a suicide."

"Well, they've got it _wrong_ , Sebastian," Sherlock snapped. "He was murdered."

"Well," said Sebastian, standing up straight, suddenly looking much less bereaved than he had a moment ago. "I'm afraid they don't see it that way. And neither does my boss." He said it as if that settled the matter.

"Seb!" Sherlock urged.

Joan mentally raised an eyebrow. ' _Seb?_ '

Sebastian's expression hardened. "I hired you to do a job," he said coldly. "Don't get sidetracked." And then he was walking away, leaving them standing together on the terrace.

"Well," said Joan. She wanted to cheer up Sherlock even though the voice in the back of her mind was still repeating, 'Seb _? Seb?'_ "Here I thought all bankers were supposed to be heartless bastards."

He didn't say anything, but the corners of his mouth twitched unpleasantly in response. Somehow, Joan thought that unconscious gesture spoke volumes...

*

Despite all the chaos in her life surrounding this graffiti-and-murder case, or perhaps because of it, Joan was committed to living as normal a life as could be had under the same roof as Sherlock Holmes. High on her list of priorities was establishing a social life outside of 221B and Scotland Yard. As much as she (usually) enjoyed the company of her mad flatmate, she desperately wanted some _normal_ friends. Starting, hopefully, at her new workplace.

Sarah had been friendly to her during the job interview, and she seemed like the sort of person that Joan would be friends with. She started putting in the effort to make small talk with Sarah whenever she had the opportunity. At the end of a particularly exhausting shift, which she had only managed with medically-inappropriate levels of caffeine consumption, she made a passing reference to the bizarre "book event" that had kept her up the night before. Much easier to tell a partial story than explain the whole chain of events that led to it, she thought.

"A book event?" said Sarah. "That sounds like fun. Did you go with your... boyfriend?" She was hesitant – they hadn't discussed their love lives (or lack of them) at work before.

Joan laughed. "Boyfriend, god no. My flatmate." She paused, seeing her chance at building a deeper connection. "I don't actually have a lot of friends here, to tell the truth. I haven't spent much time in London for years... the army, you know..."

"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "It must be hard." Joan turned to look at her, and she did seem genuinely sympathetic.

"Most everyone I knew was in the army," said Joan. "They're all continents away, so..." she shrugged. She was counting on the unspoken signals of 'girl talk' to break the ice for her.

Sarah did not disappoint. "Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but make new friends here, then." Then added: "You know, I do have a lot of free time outside the clinic hours. If you'd ever like to get a coffee together, or you just want someone to spend the time with..."

"That would be terrific!" said Joan, with a brilliant grin. "I adore my flatmate, but he drives me absolutely _barmy_ sometimes. God, the last couple of weeks he's been absolutely _manic._ I'd love a chance to get out of the flat."

"Yeah? Well, what are you doing tonight? I've got nothing on, and if you're so desperate to get out for a bit, we could go have a drink," Sarah suggested.

They still had those books to look though back at the flat, but Joan was not about to pass up the chance to get closer to her coworker. "That would be lovely!" she said. "Do you want to meet up around Piccadilly Circus a bit later? I'd like to shower and change before we go out, I've been up all night after all..."

"Yes, of course," Sarah smiled. She started to pull her phone out of her purse. "Here, give me your mobile number so we can figure out a place to meet; I'll send you a text."

After they'd exchanged numbers and went their separate ways with the promise to meet up later that night, Joan was nearly skipping home to Baker Street. She had _plans_ tonight! _Real_ plans to go out with another person that didn't involve lying in wait for a serial killer! It was shaping up to be a terrific night. She was looking forward to getting to know Sarah better and expanding her social circle beyond Sherlock.

Speaking of Sherlock, upon returning to the flat she could see that he had not diverted his attention from the book problem since she had left for work hours ago. He had changed, at least, into a new set of clothes. He was wearing that purple shirt she liked. She was tempted to ask if it came in womens' sizes (though, god forbid, she did _not_ want to start dressing like the twin of her flatmate; people thought their living together was weird enough), but she suspected that she didn't want to know what it might have cost.

He threw a book back into the box in disgust as she walked in. "I need to get some air," he announced. "We're going out tonight."

"Actually, I already have plans."

"What?" he turned around quickly and fixed her with a deep stare.

"I have plans," she repeated. "I'm meeting a coworker of mine for a night out in the West End."

Sherlock seemed utterly perplexed. "Why would you want to do _that_?"

Joan rolled her eyes. "As difficult as it is to believe, I would like to have a social life that doesn't always revolve around murder investigations, Sherlock."

By the look on his face, Sherlock had apparently not even considered that such a thing might exist.

"What are you planning to do, then?" he said irritatedly.

"I don't know, the usual night out with a friend, I suppose? Dinner and drinks?"

"Ugh. Boring, dull, predictable," he sighed. He leaned over the boxes of books and handed her a piece of paper. "Why don't you try this? In London for one night only."

She looked at the flyer: _Yellow Dragon Circus_. How... suspicious. "Thanks," she smirked. "But I think planning a _normal_ evening out isn't really your area, Sherlock."

But of course she did end up going, because Sherlock _insisted_ upon it, and Sherlock always got what he wanted, the absolute bastard. She met up with Sarah later that night, who was surprised with the change of venue, but she was willing to be flexible, thank god, and even showed some genuine interest in their new activity, since she hadn't been to the circus since she was a little girl. It looked like the night would actually turn out all right for the two women until the man in the booth said that there were three tickets booked instead of two and Joan felt her chest sinking and thought, _Oh, god, no_...

Sure enough, Sherlock popped up behind them in his usual cat-like way, and Joan was sure that she would have strangled him right then if they hadn't been in public.

"I'm Sherlock," he announced, holding his hand out to Sarah.

"My flatmate," Joan explained, her temple in her hands.

"Oh. Uh." Sarah had frozen in surprise. "Hi."

She reached out to take his hand and gave it one firm and awkward shake.

"Hello," said Sherlock. And then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

 _I will KILL him_ , thought Joan furiously, rubbing her forehead with her fingers. She was beyond angry. Was she suddenly not allowed to have friends outside of Sherlock, then? He had to go invite himself along on all her social events to keep an eye on her? He was behaving like a psychotic ex, for gods' sake!

"Er, sort of an odd bloke, isn't he, your flatmate?" said Sarah awkwardly.

"God, you have no idea," she groaned. Suddenly, she had no desire at all to see this night through to its conclusion. _Why did I have to go along to the damned circus_?

*

The Chinese circus was, without doubt, the single most awkward social outing of Joan's life, and that was _without_ counting the not-insignificant scuffle at the end with the performers. She was quite inspired, though, when Sarah rushed in to beat a man off her with a pipe, and then actually accompanied them back to Baker Street with a smile on her face and witty banter on her lips.

It was then that Joan knew she and Sarah would be _true_ friends.

Sarah appeared to be intrigued by Joan and Sherlock's "real" job and by the case that they were currently working on. Joan left the room to order Chinese food (how appropriate, she thought dryly), leaving the insatiably curious Sarah to ask a million questions of Sherlock, who appeared to be absolutely driven up the wall by her presence. Joan thought it was appropriate revenge.

She was just putting down her mobile when Sherlock was calling for her. "Joan," he cried. "JOAN!"

It was his on-to-something tone of voice. She left the phone immediately and rushed to his side. "What is it, Sherlock?"

"Look at this," he said excitedly, tearing open the evidence package with the cipher photo that DI Dimmock had brought around earlier. "Soo-Lin Yao, at the museum – she started to translate the code for us. We didn't see it!" He studied the image. "Nine mill..."

" _Million_?" she clarified.

"Nine million quid," Sherlock breathed. "For what?" He spent only a moment in thought, staring at nothing, before he abruptly stuffed the paper into the pocket and turned to grab his coat.

"Where are you going?" said Joan in irritation.

"I need to know the end of this sentence," Sherlock replied. "I'm going to the museum, to the restoration room." He sighed in frustration. "We must have been staring right at it!" he growled.

"At what?" said Joan blankly.

"The _book_ , Joan," he snapped. "The book, the key to cracking the cipher! Soo-Lin used it to do this. While we were running around the gallery, she started to translate the code. It must be on her desk!"

He turned and fled out of the room, leaving Joan and Sarah standing alone at the desk in the wake of his excitement. The room felt oddly empty without his on-to-something energy filling it up. They moved to the table, pulling out utensils and making conversation while they awaited their food.

"I think a quiet night in is just what the doctor ordered," Sarah was saying. "I mean--" she looked over at Joan. "I love to go out for an evening and wrestle a few Chinese gangsters, generally, but a girl can get too much."

"God, don't I know it," Joan sighed. "Sad to say this kind of thing has lost any sense of novelty to me."

"You live an exciting life, Joan Watson," Sarah grinned.

A knock at the door stopped Joan from responding. "Huh," she said, turning her head. "That was quick. Hang on, I'll just pop out..."

She bounded down the stairs and opened the door. A Chinese man in a dark hoodie stood on the threshold. He wasn't holding any bags or food containers but she supposed they must be on his car or motorcycle or whatever he came by on. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she said politely. "How much do I owe you?"

"Do you have it?" the man said.

"Um," she said, physically taken aback. "What?"

"Do you have the treasure?"

"Uh – sorry, I don't understand," she said.

Those last words and a gun swinging towards her head were the last things Joan remembered before she woke up an hour later with blurry eyes and a pounding headache in some sort of tunnel.

"A book is like a magic garden," someone was saying. She dearly wished the woman would shut up. Each word bit into her pounding skill like a sledgehammer. "...Carried in your pocket."

An elderly Chinese woman walked forward, barely visible between Joan's recovering senses and the bad lighting. Good lord – were those _grease fires_? She was having trouble concentrating. The woman took off her sunglasses and stood in front of her. "Chinese proverb, Mrs Holmes," she said.

Joan's head was hurting too much for this nonsense. "My... my name isn't Holmes," she managed to say.

"Forgive me if I do not take your word for it," the woman said. She was rifling through her wallet, taking out papers as they suited her. "Debit card in the name of S Holmes. Cheque for five thousand pounds made out to the name of Sherlock Holmes. Tickets for the theatre collected under the name Holmes."

"Yes, he – he lent those to me," she mumbled. "I was holding on to them..." She was incredibly confused, and not solely because her head was still fuzzy. Did the woman honestly think she was Sherlock Holmes? Had they not noticed the very convincing evidence under her blouse? She wasn't _that_ flat. Did they not notice that she was in a _skirt_ , for gods' sake?

"It _is_ typical for a woman to keep her husband's money, Mrs Holmes."

Joan's mind reeled. This was getting way too surreal. "I'm not married to Sherlock Holmes," she said, blinking into the light. "I – this is crazy. He's my flatmate."

"Yes, we are aware that you share an address," said the woman pointedly. She said it as if it were clear evidence to support their conclusions. _Well, China is a more conservative country_ , she thought.

"Really, he... he isn't my husband. We're just friends," she said desperately.

The woman paid no attention and bent down in front of her. Joan could see her much more clearly now. "I am Shan," said the woman.

"You – you're Shan?" she gasped.

The woman smiled and brought a gun to her face – Joan flinched on instinct and turned away.

"Three times we tried to kill you and your husband, Mrs Holmes. What does it tell you when an assassin cannot shoot straight?" She cocked the chamber, and Joan struggled desperately against the rope that bound her hands to the chair. Shan pulled the trigger and Joan gasped--

\--but nothing happened.

Shan withdrew the gun. "It tells you that they're not really _trying_ ," said Shan, enjoying her expression of fear. "If we wanted to kill you, Mrs Holmes, we would have done it by now. We just wanted to make your husband... inquisitive." She began to load actual bullets into the gun now. "Do you have it?" she asked.

"Have... what?"

"The treasure. Your husband, he has it. Where is it?"

"I have no idea," said Joan. She genuinely didn't; this whole situation was mad.

Shan stood up and walked to something concealed under a large sheet. "I would like to make certain," she continued in her perfect but accented English. She grasped the end of the sheet and pulled. Joan's heart pounded so hard she feared it would stop – it was the gigantic crossbow from the circus. "Everything in the West has a price," she said. "And the price for your friend's life... is information."

Sarah, whom Joan had noticed just a moment ago, turned to look at her with fear in her eyes. Joan shook her head. "No, no... please don't," she moaned. "I'm not his wife. I don't know where the treasure is – please--"

Shan's men grabbed Sarah and pulled her chair in front of the crossbow. Sarah was shaking and sobbing through the cloth that gagged her.

"Where is the hairpin?" Shan demanded again.

"What?" said Joan. She wasn't sure she'd heard correctly; a _hairpin_?

"The Empress Pin," hissed Shan. "Valued at nine million pounds. We already had a buyer in the West, and then one of our people was _greedy_ , he took it and brought it back to London – and your husband has been searching for it..."

"No, please!" cried Joan. "Please, listen – Sherlock isn't my husband – and he hasn't found what it is that you're--"

"I need a volunteer from the audience!" cried Shan, mocking her stage persona.

"No, please," moaned Joan.

"Ah, thank you, lady, yes... you'll do _very_ nicely." Shan stabbed the sandbag with her knife and the weight slowly began to drop into the basket. A ridiculous, disconnected thought in the back of Joan's head wondered why she bothered, rather than simply setting off the trigger with her hand, or a feather, apparently. But Shan did enjoy putting on a show...

"Stop," cried Joan. " _STOP, PLEASE_! I AM NOT MARRIED TO HOLMES!"

"I don't believe you!" said Shan heatedly.

"You should, you know!" another, deeper voice called from the back of the tunnel. Joan was torn between screaming for joy and screaming _you bastard, what kept you_? "She isn't his type, wouldn't you say, Joan?"

She would kill him. She would _really_ kill him.

Shan spun around and aimed a gun in the direction of Sherlock's voice.

"That's a semi-automatic," Sherlock continued. One of Shan's men rushed forward to flush him out from his hiding place. "If you fire, the bullet will travel at over a thousand metres per second." Sherlock leapt out and struck the man down before returning to his cover. "The radius curvature of these walls is nearly four metres; if you miss, the bullet will ricochet. It could hit anyone... even you." He rushed forward and kicked over one of grease fires, diving for the cords that bound Sarah to her chair.

Shan didn't have time to fire before the pandemonium broke out. One of her men leapt up behind Sherlock and pulled a long, red scarf around his neck before he could untie Sarah and the two of them fell, struggling, to the ground. Joan watched helplessly from where she was tied up and tried to inch herself forward to help Sherlock, to save Sarah, to do _something_...

Joan pulled the whole chair forward with her and threw her body into the crossbow just as it fired – into the chest of the henchman that had been trying to strangle Sherlock. She couldn't see what had happened from her place on the floor, but she heard the distinctly masculine grunt of pain and Sarah's continued sobbing and knew that it had worked.

Shan had evidently run off, as suddenly the sobbing or panting of Joan, Sherlock, and Sarah were the only sounds echoing off the tramway walls. Joan struggled to right herself from the uncomfortable position her chair had fallen into and heard Sarah whimpering as Sherlock untangled himself from the scarf and untied her. Unbelievably, she could hear Sherlock trying to comfort her – "It's all right," his voice was murmuring. "It'll be all right, it's over now..."

Joan finally managed to wiggle her bound arms from around the back of the chair and collapsed on the ground, looking over at the two of them. Sarah had started crying as soon as her mouth as free. "Don't worry," Joan panted. "I promise... next outing won't be like this. I promise."

Sarah sniffled and tried to pull back her tears. Sherlock was looking down the tramway in the direction that Shan had evidently fled; Joan could care less about the woman now that they were safe. She staggered to her feet and rushed forward to throw her arms around Sarah. She hugged her and mumbled words of comfort as the faint sound of police sirens grew stronger in the distance.

*

Joan had insisted on accompanying Sherlock back to the bank to meet Sebastian and wrap up the case. Knowing Sherlock, he would forget or outright refuse to take the rest of his commission, and Joan – well, she could admit it: she wanted the damn cheque. She wanted the pleasure of taking the money off a tit like Sebastian for so simple a resolution, and besides, however laissez-faire Sherlock might feel about their finances, they really needed the cash.

He explained to her on the way that Eddie van Coon was the thief. She could definitely envision it: the man had just nicked a hairpin, probably the smallest thing in his load, thinking nothing of it. The smugglers were probably not informed of the value of the items they carried for just this reason, that expensive pieces might disappear along with the smugglers that carried them. He had no idea that the pin he'd just nicked was probably worth more than everything else he'd ever smuggled out of China put together.

It was simple enough, though Joan had no idea what Sherlock was going on about _soap_ for.

Behind the initial security check on their floor of the bank, Sherlock excused himself on the occasion of having "business" with van Coon's PA. Joan went on to confront Sebastian alone, hoping he would recognize her from all the occasions in which he _hadn't_ paid attention to her as Sherlock's tag-along.

Amazingly, he did. She relished the look of disbelief and irritation on his face as she explained Sherlock's ultimate conclusions regarding the break-in at the bank.

"He really climbed up onto the balcony?" he said sceptically.

"Nail a plank across the window and all your problems are solved," she shrugged.

He was obviously displeased with the conspicuously unimpressive answer to his security problem, making the moment oh-so-sweeter, but signed over the cheque for twenty thousand pounds – _twenty thousand pounds!_ \- regardless. He handed it over begrudgingly and she was pleased to take it. She had to consciously hold herself back from kissing the envelope.

A scream of, "Oh my god, NINE MILLION!" from the other side of the office prompted Joan to look over. Sherlock was holding a hairpin, laughing, while Eddie van Coon's PA held the side of her desk to keep from fainting. The poor woman looked like she might hyperventilate. Evidently Sherlock had located the jade pin after all.

Joan twiddled the cheque between her fingers and gave Sebastian a curt nod in thanks. She couldn't keep the grin off her face, but she did try _very_ hard to keep herself from skipping out of the office.

*

It took another day to fully sort out all the details with the police regarding the recovery of the pin, and a few days more until all the loose ends were tied up. The "Study in Pink", as Joan had taken to calling the incident, had not been nearly so complicated in its resolution. In their adventures since, she had begun to realize just how much post-case "tidying up" there usually was to be done.

Joan had still been holding both cheques from Sebastian, and was unsure what to do with them, since Sherlock was loathe to take his money. It was yet another bit of information that Joan filed away in her mental ' _Evidence that Sherlock is gay_ ' folder. She did confront him over the financial issue eventually, and to her surprise, he had taken her to the bank (the local one this time) to open up a new account – a small business account in which they would deposit the payments Sherlock received from his private cases. An account to which Joan, to her surprise, was given full access.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked, looking disbelievingly at the brand-new debit card.

"I've been thinking about it for some time," said Sherlock thoughtfully. "It'll certainly make the taxes easier, and it makes sense to have the rent drawn from the same account... clearly, Baker Street could be claimed as 'office space' for business purposes..."

"I mean giving access to _me_ ," Joan clarified, still running her thumb in wonder over the raised letters that spelt out J H WATSON. "It's a lot of money, a lot of trust. Are you sure you'd like to do that?"

"It's simply more _convenient_ , Joan," he said, in the condescending tone of voice that said this should be obvious to her. "We _work_ together and otherwise I suppose I'd have to _pay_ you or something. We might as well draw rent and living expenses from our joint income from cases, and for that, you must agree that it's easier to use a joint bank account."

 _Joint income_ , she thought. _Joint account_. This was decidedly _not_ normal flatmate behaviour. Though she _had_ been wondering what kind of cut, if any, she would receive from the large cheque. They hadn't talked about money or payment, and she really hadn't been sure how to bring it up. Sherlock was certainly the core of their "service", as it were, and she felt it would be unfair to ask him to go half-and-half with her on his earnings. But she _was,_ in some bizarre way, in his employ. She had to admit that this was a practical solution and it avoided the awkward question of how to divide the income from his cases.

She had no idea how she would even begin to explain this on her tax forms.

"Thank you," she said, her voice distinctly awed.

Sherlock waved dismissively. "No. You are indeed my... _colleague_."

Joan frowned. That last word had been rather frosty. "You all right, Sherlock?" she asked. "Something bothering you?"

"Fine," he said stiffly.

"It's just, you sounded a bit cold there. Everything all right?"

"Yes, everything is fine," he said, pulling up the collar of his coat. "Fancy a curry for lunch? I know a good place towards Oxford Street."

She was suspicious, but accepted his attempt to change the subject. Whatever it was, he didn't seem genuinely _angry_ about it _..._ she just thought she'd heard a bit of a bitter inflection on that one word.

"I could go for a good curry," she said agreeably.

"Good. You know the interesting thing about Indian places, it's actually the _top_ third of the door handle from which one can discern the quality..."

She let him go on, nodding in the right places and adding her hums of agreement. Usually she was fascinated by Sherlock's little observations, but at the moment, her mind was buzzing with activity (regardless of what Sherlock might like to think). About the new debit card in her pocket and what it meant... about the weird relationship she had with her maybe-gay, maybe-asexual flatmate... and about the germ of an idea she'd been tossing around about starting that blog after all.

These were interesting stories, she thought, as Sherlock went on about restaurant fliers. Someone out there must want to hear about them. The thought made her smile. She was already composing her first post in her head.


	3. The Black Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock harpoons a dead pig. Joan has had enough of his destructive "boredom" and finally snaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was re-reading the ACD canon when I came across "The Adventure of the Black Peter" (one of the stories in the Return), in which Sherlock spends the morning harpooning dead pigs to gather information for the case. I was really psyched to finally have the backstory behind that harpoon moment at the start of Hounds of Baskerville, so I wanted to work it into the story. 
> 
> I shuffled things around a bit to have the harpoon thing occurring before TGG instead, since I really wanted to work on a non-BBC plotline for once. This chapter ended up being more emotional than case-related though... oh well.
> 
> It hasn't been Britpicked even though I tried to work in a lot of setting details, so if you see anything amiss, please let me know!

_On the tube back to Baker St. Boring. SH_

 

Joan sighed and placed her phone back on the table. _Boring_ just about described it – they hadn't had a really good, intriguing, adrenaline-pumping case in nearly a week now. Just the normal mundane enquiries driven in by their websites: cheating spouses, minor robberies, even missing pets. She had been hopeful that morning when Sherlock left the flat with a goddamn _harpoon_ in tow, even texted him out of her own curiosity to see if it was promising. Apparently not.

 

So she made herself a cup of tea and tried to engage herself in one of the newspapers that were delivered to the flat every morning. She thumbed through it trying to find a story she _hadn't_ already seen on the internet. Why did Sherlock subscribe to these things, honestly? He was more of a web addict than her, and they just piled up on the table until Joan got fed up and threw them all out, anyway.

 

Weren't newspaper subscriptions expensive? Not that they needed to be _terribly_ careful with their finances nowadays, since that Chinese smuggling case a few months ago had set them up rather well, but Joan still felt that nagging instinct left over from growing up without money: it was a _waste._

 

At least it was a distraction. 

 

There were still old editions of the general medicine journals that she hadn't read, but they just didn't seem so captivating anymore. Since moving in with Sherlock, she'd taken out subscriptions in a couple of forensic medicine journals in the hopes of becoming a more valuable crime-solving assistant, and she'd absolutely _devoured_ them in interest. They'd paid for them out of their joint account and (she) claimed them as business expenses, which she felt was perfectly justifiable. Even Sherlock read them occasionally when she pointed out a particularly interesting paper.

 

She hadn't given forensic medicine even a second thought when she'd been choosing her specialization in medical school. Hadn't even been particularly interested by detective stories as a child.

 

Was there always a Joan Watson who was secretly enthralled by forensics and mysteries lurking under the surface? If someone had got her into Agatha Christie or something as a child, was there a Joan that might have gone into forensics instead of the army? Or was this a new Joan Watson completely unique to the here and now?

 

She hadn't imagined there would be days of boredom when she was almost as eager to shoot up the wall as Sherlock, but she was getting there.

 

She was trying unsuccessfully to interest herself in a poorly-conceived human "interest" piece about a child chess prodigy when she heard the door slam and Sherlock's unusually heavy footsteps climbing the staircase. She turned her head lazily when he stormed in and did a double take.

 

Sherlock was covered in fresh blood spatter from head to toe. He slammed the butt of the harpoon on the floor impatiently. "Well, that was _tedious_ ," he spat.

 

Joan had thought she was beginning to sympathize with Sherlock's conception of "boring". Clearly she'd been grossly mistaken.

 

"You went on the tube like _that_?" she said incredulously.

 

"None of the cabs would take me," he grumbled.

 

Sherlock balanced the (still bloody) harpoon against the wall and stalked off to shower and change his clothes. It took Joan a minute to remember that she was still staring after him. She shook herself and returned to the newspaper. _Bloody hell_.

 

*

 

Sherlock returned to the sitting room blood-free and dressed in proper clothes. If it was really as tedious as he claimed, Joan thought he would have just changed back into his t-shirt and dressing gown and moped around the flat like he always did. He did seem agitated, but it seemed to be more out of anticipation than boredom.

 

Sherlock wet a towel from the kitchen – a nice white one, Joan thought despairingly – and took the harpoon with him to the couch, where he sat down and began to wipe off the drying blood.

 

"So," she said, folding up the paper and turning in her chair to face him. "How was it...?"

 

"Tedious," he sighed. " _Boring_. I wasn't able to use a live one. Sub-optimal research." He wiped rather moodily at the spiky tip of the harpoon.

 

"A live... what?" she asked cautiously.

 

"A pig, Joan!" he snapped. "It would have been much better for the experiment if it were alive."

 

She sat up straight. "Well, I should hope you couldn't get your hands on a live pig," she said severely. "It goes against any kind of animal welfare law, and it isn't humane! Where were you that you were spearing dead pigs, anyway?"

 

He rolled his eyes. "Ugh, boring."

 

" _Sherlock_!" she warned, quite stung. She actually did adore animals.

 

"Fine," he growled, wiping down the handle of the harpoon distractedly. "Have your animal welfare laws, no matter how they impede my _experiments_ ," he said bitterly. "A case hangs in the balance, you know."

 

"So you _do_ have a case?" she said. She was hurt; he hadn't brought her, then? Not that she really wanted to watch him harpoon pigs, dead or not.

 

"Not yet," he said. "But I expect the police to beg for my assistance, as always. It shouldn't take them _too_ long to figure out what I deduced for myself just this morning." Some of the blood had already clotted onto the harpoon, and he scrubbed at it impatiently with the towel as he spoke.

 

"What, by harpooning a dead pig?" she said irritatedly. "I don't suppose you'll humour me and actually let me know where you were and what this is about before the end of the morning?"

 

Sherlock rolled his eyes again. "If you must know, I was down at the Smithfield Market."

 

"Smithfield? They let you harpoon a dead pig at _Smithfield_? That must be against some sanitary regulation," she said doubtfully.

 

He gave up trying to get the last bits of blood off the harpoon and threw it to the floor. Joan winced as it struck the hardwood. That would definitely leave marks, and Mrs Hudson would be furious...

 

"Irrelevant," said Sherlock, waving his hand dismissively. He lay down across the length of the couch, letting one of his legs dangle over the side. "I solved a case for one of the poultry merchants there, he owed me a favour. Lost his wife's heirloom blue diamond wedding ring inside a goose. I recovered it."

 

"But _why_?"

 

"It doesn't seem my usual area, yes, but the case presented many interesting characteristics... for instance, it all began with a simple hat--"

 

"I don't mean why did you take the case, I mean why were you harpooning a dead pig at Smithfield!" she cried.

 

He rolled over to look at her. "I'm disappointed in you, Joan," he said, frowning. "I thought it was an astoundingly _simple_ connection, even with your lack of--"

 

"Yes, yes, all right," she said impatiently. "What have I missed?"

 

Sherlock rolled off the couch in a flash, leaping to his feet to pace around the coffee table. Despite his disappointment in her deductive abilities, he seemed excited at the chance to recount the case. He clasped his hands behind his back and started to reel off the facts as he knew them. 

 

"Murder two nights ago in Sussex, near Forest Row. Victim was Peter Carey – Captain Peter Carey, sixty-two. He was a sea captain, involved briefly in the whaling industry as a young man until the mid-80s, when the practice was banned, then moved on to captain seal-hunting ships in Canada. Came back to England two years ago to retire in Sussex. Someone ran him through with an harpoon in his study last night."

 

"What? He was harpooned to death?" Joan reached over to her discarded paper, frowning. "I didn't see anything about that in the paper, you'd think that would at least make the domestic news..."

 

"You wouldn't have seen it this morning. The man lived alone, the body was discovered very late last night by a neighbour looking in on him and the police didn't make release any information until hours later. Too late to make the morning papers, but if you'd bothered to check the internet like everyone else instead of relying on a dead medium for outdated information, you would have seen it as I did."

 

Joan felt annoyance bubbling up inside. "But then why do you—look, it doesn't matter, all right? The man was _harpooned_?"

 

" _Obviously_ the harpoon was already present at the crime scene," said Sherlock, waving his hand in irritation at her slowness. "He was a former whaler, probably nostalgic for the old days. He had an antique harpoon on the wall of his study. No car other than Carey's own had been spotted near the house, and even at night when the murder occurred, no one could have carried a harpoon there without drawing attention to themselves. A painfully simple deduction even if it _wasn't_ mentioned in the news reports, which it was." He sighed and fixed Joan with a pained look.

 

"All right, so a man was harpooned to death in Sussex. Why the pig?"

 

"An experiment. I expected to be called in to consult on this case eventually, and as my store of knowledge regarding harpoon-related crime is regrettably weak, I thought it would be best to obtain some practical experience in the area. In theory, it should be quite difficult to run a man through with a harpoon. I wanted to know just _how_ difficult it would be."

 

"And how difficult is it?"

 

" _Extremely_ ," he said. This seemed to excite him even more, and he went on, pacing faster: "The harpoon is just about the _worst_ weapon the killer could have chosen. Bulky, difficult to manoeuvre. It requires enormous physical strength in the arms and back. It would be difficult to strike an immediately-fatal blow on the first jab, and the first would probably be the only chance they had, because the jagged tip makes it difficult to easily pull the weapon out of the flesh – rather the whole point of a harpoon. Even in the heat of the moment, no sane man would possibly choose this weapon unless he had significant experience to feel comfortable wielding it."

 

"Perhaps it was their only choice," Joan suggested. "What are the odds they would find another weapon just lying around?"

 

Sherlock let out a long, deep sigh. "Quite high, in fact. The man was involved in the seal-hunting industry for decades. If he had a harpoon on his wall, he might have had other weapons on his wall better-designed for a close-range struggle. He obviously had a passion for hunting, as he moved from whaling to another marine hunting industry, even moving between countries to do so. Not an unreasonable assumption that he would have other weapons nearby. Even following the lesser probability that he didn't, just about any blunt object in the room would have been far more efficient. The victim and his killer were evidently drinking rum just prior to the murder; the bottle would have made an excellent weapon. So why the harpoon? Why choose the weapon most difficult to wield? The answer to that question significantly narrows the field of suspects."

 

"This is an awful lot of thought that you've put into a case you're not even working yet," Joan observed.

 

"Hardly," said Sherlock dismissively. "It was merely a few minutes' reflection on an internet news article. The pig experiment merely confirmed information that I had already deduced. I just needed something to do with my morning."

 

He threw himself face-first onto the couch. "Dear GOD, why does it all have to be so BORING?" he moaned into a pillow.

 

 _Sherlock Holmes, consulting five-year-old_. Joan stood up and edged away from the couch to let Sherlock finish his little tantrum. "I'll go off and make you some tea, Sherlock," she said. "If you're so desperate to work on the case, you should call the Sussex police, or at least call Scotland Yard and see if Lestrade will put in a word for you."

 

"I am _not_ desperate to work on the case," he muttered disdainfully, muffled by the cushions.

 

 _Not at all. It's perfectly normal to spend your morning spearing a pig with a harpoon and then sulking into the couch about it_. Joan bit her tongue. "Well then. I guess you'll have to just wait and see if they call you in. Too bad your reputation isn't as well known in Sussex as it is in London."

 

Sherlock lifted his head out of the cushions to glare at her.

 

Joan rolled her eyes and went to busy herself with the kettle. If he was too proud to call up the police in another county, it was his own damn fault if he was bored. He definitely knew she was right: it was uncommon for police departments outside the Met to actually invite him into an investigation. Mostly because it was questionable (if not actually illegal) police practice in the first place.

 

She weighed her options. She _could_ make an excuse to get out of the house and put in a call to Lestrade, at least see if he would talk to Sussex for them. _No_ , she told herself very firmly. _You will not be Sherlock's enabler. He will just have to swallow his pride and call them himself_. But then again, if Sherlock was impatient and bored, she was the one who would have to suffer with him...

 

The kettle began to whistle. It was a game she couldn't win.

 

*

 

Sherlock's moping grew worse as the afternoon went on. Joan tried everything she could think of, short of Cluedo (they were _never_ playing that again) or calling Lestrade. She dragged him out for a walk around Regent's Park for people-watching, although it was more like people-deducing, and only Sherlock was doing the deducing. When they did these activities together in a good mood, his deductions were fairly general: professions, family situations, hobbies, that sort of thing. This afternoon he'd been in an absolutely rotten mood and deduced nothing but affairs and lies and illegitimate children. Not bothering, of course, to keep his voice down. It was a short excursion.

 

Sherlock returned to the couch, to the same spot he had been lying in that morning. Joan sat in her armchair, brainstorming activities to keep him busy. 

 

"How about we go down to Bart's and see if Molly can spare any body parts for you?" Joan suggested. It was indicative of her desperation that she actually proposed bringing _more_ body parts into the flat.

 

"Called this morning. Can't spare as much as a toe," Sherlock fumed.

 

"We could go over to Scotland Yard and ask to dig through the cold cases again?"

 

" _Boring_ ," he groaned. He picked up a pillow and pulled it over his head, looking like he was trying to suffocate himself.

 

"Sherlock," said Joan, losing her patience. "Surely there must be _some_ experiments you'd like to run? We could even stop by Bart's to pick up some chemicals if there's anything you're lacking."

 

" _No_ , Joan," snapped Sherlock. He ripped the pillow off his face and sat up straight on the couch. "Just stop it. There is _nothing_ I want to be doing right now, all right?" He stood up and threw the pillow on the floor. "No experiments, no cold cases. I need a _real_ case or my mind will simply rot. So, please, just – stop this _ridiculous_ dragging me around, stop pestering me about it – just _stop_."

 

That was it.

 

" _Fine_ ," she cried, flinging her hands in the air. "Fine, Sherlock, if you're not going to get up and do anything about it, it's your own fault, all right? It's your own _fucking_ fault. I have tried to be patient with you, I've tried to propose things to fill your time, but if you aren't even going to _try –_ I don't know why I bother with you. Really – I just don't."

 

She stood up and stomped over to the coat rack. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely pull her arms through the coat, and she had to turn away from Sherlock. She just couldn't stand to see him right now.

 

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

 

" _Out_ ," she snapped, pulling her plaid scarf around her neck. "I just can't stand to be around you like this. Text me when you're done being a childish wanker, all right?"

 

If he shouted anything equally hurtful in reply, she missed it, having stepped out and slammed the door to their flat after the last word. She was so angry that the world felt disconnected and distant around her. All she wanted was to be _out_ , to be somewhere Sherlock wasn't.

 

Somewhere in her fuzzy mind she registered Mrs Hudson's concerned voice, but she was out the door and walking down Baker Street before it caught up with her.

 

 _Damn_ , she thought. _Damn. Great job modelling maturity right there. Really stellar performance. A-plus_.

 

The guilt started working in before she had even crossed Marylebone Road.

 

 _That was not good. That was very not good. What you just did there, Joan, was very not good_.

 

She had just thrown a fit and walked out on her socially- and possibly emotionally-disabled best friend, who clearly had legitimate problems. Problems with his mind, problems with expressing himself, problems with controlling himself. And she, the _only_ friend he had, essentially told him to go fuck himself and ran out the door.

 

 _Inspired performance. Just... fantastic_.

 

She wasn't quite sure where she was going, but she didn't want to turn back just yet.

 

 _He can't go on thinking this is acceptable behaviour_ , she reasoned with herself. _I won't be an enabler. He can't treat everyone like this. He can't expect everyone's patience to last forever. He can't expect_ my _patience to last forever. He has to learn_.

 

But, really, if he'd gotten to his mid-thirties without discovering this and changing his behaviour, what hope did she have of changing him now? She couldn't say anything to him that hadn't been brought to his attention a hundred times before.

 

Maybe this _was_ her role – to continue being the doormat, to let him get away with saying things to her that he couldn't say to anyone else. Maybe she was _supposed_ to be the one person in his life that just sat back and took it, to let him rant and rage and be a horrible human being when he needed to, so he could keep being his brilliant self and have someone in his life that was willing to accept him no matter what he did.

 

 _No_ , she told herself firmly. _I will not be a goddamn martyr for Sherlock_.

 

That was how women got themselves into abusive relationships, after all, wasn't it? _I know he's horrible to me sometimes, but he needs someone that will be with him through anything... he has a stressful life, he needs to take it out somewhere and I don't mind being his outlet... I don't mind sacrificing myself so he can keep being brilliant_. Joan had heard them all from girlfriends in bad relationships. She'd treated domestic violence victims that gave the same excuses. _He's such a good person, he's special, I don't mind it, really, he's just such an intense person, it gets away with him sometimes and I need to be there for him_...

 

Joan would not be that woman. She wouldn't let herself. Sherlock might not consciously realize these things (well, maybe – who knew?) but she would not let him learn that it was all right to take advantage of her. She would not let him assume that her patience was infinite. She adored Sherlock, she admired and respected him, but she wouldn't let herself be a martyr for him.

 

Joan had been walking for a long time while these thoughts circled around in her head. Hyde Park was only a couple of streets away, and she'd already walked in the park once today, but she decided it couldn't hurt to do it again. She could do with a bit more nature in her day.

 

She didn't get very far into the park, but stopped on a bench near the Marble Arch. She watched people walking by with their dogs, with their kids (she checked her watch, were schools already out for the day?), while still going back and forth in her mind. She wanted to think her reaction had been completely called for. It was, wasn't it? Sherlock needed to learn her limits. Should she go back and be the first to apologize? Would that count as "being the bigger man", so to speak, or was that still enabling, letting him think that he didn't need to take responsibility for himself?

 

 _I need to put our friendship first and apologize_ , she thought one moment. In the next: _What kind of friendship is it where one person is always giving in to the other_?

 

 _Why can't this be uncomplicated_?

 

*

 

It was starting to get dark by the time Joan came back to 221B, though on an evening in late autumn in London, that was hardly late at all. She'd only been gone a couple of hours. The lights in the upstairs windows were off. She opened the front door quietly, her heart pounding; of all things, she was terrified of running into Mrs Hudson. Joan wasn't sure what she had heard or said earlier and felt horribly guilty. What must Mrs Hudson think of her, shouting and storming off in such a bad mood like that?

 

Fortunately, no one came out to meet her on the stairs. Joan was able to slip quietly up the seventeen steps to their flat, the door to which was still closed. She and Sherlock rarely closed the door leading to the stairs, since she slept upstairs and Mrs Hudson would frequently come up from 221A to say hello. The closed door looked particularly ominous and judging in the dark hall, as if saying, _I hope you're happy_.

 

All the lights were off inside the flat, but Joan could see by the light from the window that their coffee table was upside-down in front of the couch. So Sherlock _was_ mad. Was he still? She wasn't even sure if he was still in the flat. It wouldn't be unheard of for him to have given up on the day and gone to bed, even this early. Sometimes he did that when he was depressed.

 

"Sherlock?" she called, flipping the light switch. "Sherlock, are you here?"

 

"Turn off the light, please," came the oddly muffled reply.

 

She couldn't see him, but she obliged and turned the lights off. The flat was still well-illuminated by the streetlights outside the window and she looked around for the source of his voice. "Sherlock?" she called again. "Where are you?"

 

No reply.

 

His voice definitely hadn't come from the bedroom. She walked into the centre of their sitting room and looked around. Her eyes settled on a large dark lump on the floor by the bookcase in the corner, slightly hidden by Sherlock's armchair. It was the most shadowy part of the room, but as she drew closer, she could see that it was a blanket, probably the duvet from Sherlock's bed. It wasn't a great leap of logic to deduce that Sherlock was curled up inside it.

 

It was such a childish reaction, but it broke her heart.

 

"Sherlock," she said again, more firmly. She could see the blanket scrunch up tighter. She knelt down in front of it. "Sherlock, are you all right?"

 

"Fine," was the muffled reply. "Please go away."

 

"I wanted to apologize," she said. "It wasn't fair of me to say those things, so I'm sorry I lost my temper with you. I was frustrated, and I don't appreciate you snapping at me when I've tried my best to help you." She paused. "But... it didn't excuse me from saying shit things like that. So, I'm sorry."

 

A pair of pale arms appeared out of the duvet and shuffled it around a bit so Sherlock could lift up his head to look at her. His face was emotionless, his eyes searching her face coldly, analytically. His hair stuck out at bizarre angles and his skin was flushed – but not, she could tell, from crying. More likely from being curled up inside a hot blanket in the corner for god knows how long. She reached out to touch part of the blanket where his arms had disappeared.

 

At her touch, his eyes dropped and something like sadness or embarrassment flickered across his face. She sat down properly on the floor and shuffled closer to him.

 

"I don't know what to do, Joan," he said finally, his voice deeper than normal. "You don't know what it's _like_. I can't turn it _off_. My mind is like a computer that can't shut down, a computer that is always doing calculations, dozens of processes running at once. If I don't have somewhere to _focus_ it, I..." he trailed off and his head lowered. "It feels like it's tearing me apart. It will keep spinning and screaming until it's worn me away to nothing." The blanket shook and he buried his face in his knees. Even in the dark, he hated that she could see him.

 

Joan lifted her hand from his arm and – after a second of hesitation – gently ran it through his exposed hair. Even through his scalp, she could feel him stiffen. She paused until he relaxed, and then very gently stroked her knuckles through his hair.

 

"I know it's hard," she said softly. "Well – no. I _don't_ know how hard it is. I can't pretend I do. But I'm..." she struggled so hard to find the words to describe what she wanted to be to him. She couldn't. "I'm here for you," she said finally. "You can always talk to me."

 

"Doesn't help," Sherlock muttered. Her hands stopped moving in his hair and perhaps he sensed her frown, because he quickly added: "What I mean is that talking about it will not stop or alleviate it. I appreciate your gesture, Joan. But I'm afraid there's little of practical value that you can do to help me." 

 

There was a moment of silence, Joan continuing to run her fingers gently through Sherlock's hair and then he spoke again, lifting his head slightly. "Thank you for... wanting to. No one has. Except Mycroft."

 

She thought about that. And finally the words came.

 

"I love you, Sherlock," she said.

 

He immediately sat up straight and pulled away from her hand, fixing her with a shocked glare.

 

She rolled her eyes. "Not like _that_ , you great git. It's not a romantic feeling. You're my best friend and probably the closest person I have in the world right now... and, well, I love you. Very much, actually."

 

His suspicious look faded and was replaced with something she couldn't identify. But it was still fixed on her. "Perhaps I just don't understand what people call 'love'," he said in an odd voice. "But I'm afraid I don't follow your statement."

 

Joan hummed for a moment and thought about how to put her feelings into words. "I care about you a lot," she said finally. "More than a normal friend, even a best friend, and I don't know why. A bit like a family member, but I don't feel _obliged_ to. I like spending time with you... most of the time. I worry about you. I want you to be happy."

 

"And is that love?" he said curiously.

 

"Well, I'd call it that," she said. "Don't know about everyone else. I suppose it depends."

 

Sherlock was quiet. She supposed he was filing the information away and flagging it for further research. "It doesn't give you the licence to say or act however you like," she added, remembering her internal struggle. "I want to make that clear. It doesn't mean that I'm your doormat. But I want to be here to help and support you, Sherlock, even when things are hard."

 

"I..." It was his turn to be lost for words. "Joan, I..." He cleared his throat and looked away in embarrassment. "Sentiment is not really my area, but..."

 

"Sherlock, you're not obliged to say anything in return," she said, anticipating his response. "I know it's not your area. And I certainly don't want you to say anything you don't mean because you think I want to hear it."

 

He was silent for a few moments. "Thank you," he said quietly.

 

She rolled onto her knees. To his enormous surprise, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a slightly awkward sitting-down hug. He tensed for a moment, then relaxed and shuffled a bit to rest his head on her shoulder. He shivered involuntarily when she placed a very soft kiss on the top of his head.

 

"You're an idiot sometimes," she said fondly. "The smartest idiot I know, but still an idiot."

 

He blinked. "I... suppose so," he said slowly. 

 

She gave him a squeeze with her arms, and he was sure he could feel her chuckle.

 

*

 

Joan turned on the lights and made them tea afterwards with a large smile on her face. Sherlock still looked ridiculous, with his hair even messier than normal and his skin flushed from a combination of the heat from the blanket and slight embarrassment at his first hug in – years, maybe, she couldn't know. Sherlock being Sherlock, he had regained his composure within minutes of standing up and managed to make even his ridiculousness look elegant.

 

He had already turned on the telly when she returned with the tea, and they settled down on the couch to watch whatever mindless nonsense was on at that time of the evening. Joan handed the mugs to Sherlock and righted the coffee table before she sat down so they could have a place to put their tea. Some of the papers that had been on the table before still littered the floor, but they could worry about them later. She took her tea from Sherlock and sat down beside him on the couch.

 

Sherlock always let her choose the programming, despite being a control freak in every other area of their cohabitation. He knew absolutely nothing of the programmes and probably didn't even know what channels they had, excluding the ones that occasionally played the news.

 

Tonight she settled on a BBC comedy about supernatural creatures in modern London. She expected Sherlock to make his usual snarky remarks about her programming choice, but he said nothing. He merely sipped his tea and made the occasional scoff of condescension when the characters did something he found ridiculous. For the end of one of Sherlock's "boring" days, it was a surprisingly adequate evening.

 

Joan was quite amused by the programme, but she did notice that Sherlock was occasionally looking over at her. They were separated by about couple of feet of space on the couch. She wasn't sure what to think when, halfway through the show, he leaned off the couch to put his tea on the table and sat back down close enough for their legs to be touching. Sherlock did nothing by accident. She could feel the tension his body was giving off.

 

The mystery was solved a few minutes later when he suddenly leaned over to put his head on her shoulder. He had clearly miscalculated the distance and was much too tall for the positioning to work from that angle, but stayed there awkwardly, too unsure or too embarrassed to move into a better position. She took pity on him and shuffled a bit farther away (grabbing his sleeve to assure him that her movement wasn't a rejection) so he could lean properly on her.

 

Joan looked over at him. Sherlock kept his eyes pointedly fixed forward, but she could see the hints of a blush in his cheeks. She felt like laughing, but she felt a bit sad, too. He was so unused to having a close friend. It seemed surreal that someone could reach their thirties without knowing how to properly snuggle up to someone.

 

"Can we watch the news?" he said quietly, after the programme was finished. "I want to see if any progress has been made on the Sussex harpooner."

 

"Sure," said Joan. "Might be more efficient to just grab a laptop and look it up online, though. We might have to wait for a while for it to come up in the news cycle."

 

"I'm quite comfortable and I don't want to move," he said simply.

 

Joan smirked and flipped to the BBC News. "As sir wishes."

 

It did take ten minutes of political news for the newscasters to get around to the murder in Sussex (Joan could feel Sherlock squirming impatiently throughout), but eventually they got there.

 

" _In other news, a suspect has been apprehended by the police this evening in connection with the murder of former ship captain Peter Carey, who was stabbed to death with an antique harpoon in his residence in Sussex_ \--"

 

"No!" cried Sherlock, sitting up straight.

 

"Ahh, too bad," sighed Joan. "Maybe you'll get a chance at the next murder, Sherlock."

 

"Wait," he said sharply, holding out a hand to stop her.

 

"— _identified as John Neligan, twenty-two, who was seen going to confront Mr Carey on the night of his murder about a scandal regarding insider trading_ \--"

 

"No, no, no!" cried Sherlock, leaping to his feet. "It's wrong, it's all wrong!"

 

"Sherlock?" said Joan, incredibly puzzled. "What's wrong?"

 

"They're wrong!" said Sherlock triumphantly. "Look at that man!" A photo of the young suspect was indeed displayed in the corner of the screen. "That man did _not_ drive a harpoon through a hardened hunter and sea captain. The hair, the complexion – he clearly works in an office, probably a clerk in trading office if insider trading was his motive. I told you earlier, Joan, that the harpoon was a peculiar choice of weapon. I attempted to wield one myself. It's exceptionally difficult. That skinny young boy – that office worker – did not harpoon the sea captain, I would stake my career on it!"

 

"Maybe he was a javelin thrower in uni," Joan suggested.

 

"No, no! Didn't you see the photo? He doesn't have nearly the build for javelin throwing. He'd need a great deal more upper body strength than _that_." Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "No. It's possible the man was an accomplice – impossible to say without all the details – but he certainly wasn't the one wielding the harpoon."

 

Joan leaned back into the couch, a smile on her face. "Well then," she said. "I guess someone will have to call the Sussex police and tell them that they've got the wrong man in custody."

 

"Yes," said Sherlock. "Yes, this is unacceptable. Where—ah." His phone had obviously been among the unfortunate objects flung around the room when Sherlock had tipped the coffee table. It was lying on the floor by their desk. He went to retrieve it.

 

"Call Lestrade first," said Joan. "Have him put the information through. He'll probably be a lot more amenable than anyone in Sussex."

 

"Oh, Joan. You ought to know better," he sighed. "You know I prefer to text."

 

"My mistake. _Text_ Lestrade and tell him to call ahead to Sussex."

 

Sherlock's thumbs were already tapping away at a mile a minute. Joan smiled from her place on the couch. With any luck, they would be off to Sussex in the morning. At the very least, the spark was back in Sherlock's eyes. There were few things he enjoyed more than informing the police that they were wrong.

 

However they replied, it at least looked like tomorrow would not be boring.


	4. A Scandal in Sexuality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joan and Sherlock have a very confusing encounter with Irene Adler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all, I'm back! Sorry for leaving this so long, but it's been a crazy couple of months for me (exams, backpacking, moving to a different continent, job hunting) and I haven't had much time to write.
> 
> I did have about half a chapter written for TGG, but it just really wasn't working out so I decided to skip it and go straight to Scandal. Perhaps I might go back and write some TGG stuff through flashbacks, but for now... we're just skipping ahead a bit.

Only a single look passed between them when they decided to do the unthinkable – something that even Moriarty hadn't seen coming.

"I would try to convince you," he said, in that chilling sing-song way of his, lit up with his unbalanced smile. "But everything I have to say has already crossed your mind!"

That was when they did it. Moriarty couldn't see; Sherlock was facing away from him, so he was oblivious to the moment when Sherlock's eyes found Joan's, seeking her permission. She gave it.

Odd, though, that Moriarty hadn't considered a play like that. Odd that he'd walked back into the room with a vest full of plastic explosives lying at his feet. Even Joan had been thinking of ways to trigger it if they were left with no other option, but perhaps it her military mind. Maybe he just didn't think like that, or perhaps he thought Sherlock was too vain to consider it. But she knew better.

"Probably my answer has crossed yours," said Sherlock. He slowly turned to face Moriarty and lowered the gun to the vest on the floor.

Moriarty's head bobbed about, eyes wide, like a curious reptile. He might have licked his lips. Joan could hear the words behind that twisted face as if they echoed around the room: _Interesting_!

Sherlock probably had just one shot before they were riddled with sniper fire. She wished that it was her holding the gun, but at this range, it hopefully shouldn't matter how good his aim was.

Joan was well-positioned against the lockers to shove off with some momentum, and she was already in a crouch. The edge of the pool wasn't far. If she reacted the instant Sherlock fired, she might be able to tackle him into the water – a long shot, maybe, but she'd seen gutsier moves in Afghanistan...

She braced herself for the end of the stand-off, whatever it was. If she'd been prepared to die with her comrades in Afghanistan, she would certainly be prepared to die with Sherlock in this... well, in this swimming pool. Not quite so glamourous, but at least she'd be dying in her own country and save someone the repatriation expense.

The silence was so tense and the onset of the Bee Gees tune so sudden that Joan almost leaped out to tackle Sherlock at the start of it. They exchanged a puzzled glance, looking around to identify the source.

Moriarty sighed and closed his eyes in exasperation. "Do you mind if I get that?"

Joan almost collapsed against the lockers. _It's his fucking_ _ringtone_?

"Oh, no, please," said Sherlock, keeping his eyes focused ahead and the gun trained on the vest. "You've got the rest of your life."

Moriarty unlocked and answered his phone. "Hello? Yes, of course it is, what do you want..." He made a face to Sherlock and mouthed ' _Sorry_ ' over the mouthpiece of the phone.

He began to pace around leisurely as he listened to the other side of the line. Joan and Sherlock shared another look; she was glad to see that he seemed as confused by the turn of events as she.

"SAY THAT AGAIN!"

Both Joan and Sherlock were startled by the violence of the shout.

"Say that again," Moriarty repeated into the phone, waving his hands for unseen emphasis, "And know that if you are lying to me, I will find you, and I will _skin_ you."

Joan was transfixed by the display, but exchanged another quick look with Sherlock. She didn't need to say it, but she knew they were both thinking it: _this guy is seriously unhinged_.

Moriarty lowered the phone and walked forward, slowly. "Sorry," he said, looking darkly at some point beyond them. "Wrong day to die."

"Oh," said Sherlock, mocking disappointment. "Did you get a better offer?"

Moriarty looked up from his phone and took a step back. "You'll be hearing from me, Sherlock." And then, miraculously, he started walking towards the far door, lifting the phone back to his ear. Joan could catch his side of the conversation from across the room: "If you have what you say you have, I'll make you rich... if you don't, I'll make you into shoes."

Sherlock waited until the laser sights disappeared before lowering the gun and looking around to make sure the gunmen had disappeared.

Joan let out the breath she'd been holding and sank back against the pool lockers. "What happened there?" she asked.

"Someone changed his mind," said Sherlock, looking pensive. "The question is... who?"

* * *

The weeks following the 'pool incident', as Joan had taken to calling it, were unnervingly normal. Moriarty had not yet followed up on his promise to haunt Sherlock, and the residual high from 'the great game' cases kept Sherlock from descending too far into catatonic boredom.

There was a steady stream of clients, too, into the sitting room ('consulting room') of 221B, which Joan tried to keep as tidy as possible to put up a respectable front for their 'business'. Sherlock rejected or solved most of the cases instantly, and only took up the ones which particularly intrigued him. At least he could afford to be picky, with the number of people coming to him for help.

Joan's blog had grown enormously in popularity, much to Sherlock's frustration. It was odd to be followed by so many people that didn't know either of them personally, but it was flattering.

She was pecking out a new draft on the couch when Sherlock came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder. A few months ago it would have been an enormous violation of her personal space, but she'd since grown desensitized to Sherlock's lack of boundaries.

"'The Geek Interpreter'? What's that?" he demanded.

"That's the title," she said.

"What does it need a title for?"

She turned her head towards him. He was much too close. "You know, it's for..." she paused. Something in the air smelled fruity and familiar. "Sherlock, are you – are you using my _shampoo_?"

He pulled his head back sharply. "Ran out of mine. Assumed you wouldn't mind."

"Uh, it's fine," said Joan, twisting to face him. "It's just a bit... _girly_ for you, isn't it?"

Sherlock huffed. "It isn't as if anyone but _me_ notices these things."

"Suit yourself," she said, turning back to her laptop.

* * *

"Why, Joan, I didn't realize you were so _vain_."

"Shut up, you," she said, looking quickly over the newspaper to glare at Sherlock. "It's exciting, all right? I didn't think I'd ever make it into the paper outside of – well, outside of being killed in action or something."

Sherlock was in his scarlet bathrobe this time, lying face-down across the sofa. The sting of his words increased directly in relation to his boredom. He had been lying there all afternoon, occasionally lifting his head a few inches to throw some new barbs in Joan's direction.

"'Hatman and Robin'," he quoted disgustedly. "What _rubbish_. See what your blog has brought upon us, Joan?"

"I see that my blog has brought upon us a flood of clients," she said, not looking up from the article. "Not that it seems to matter, if you'll just reject all of them. If you're bored, it's your own damn fault."

Sherlock curled back up into his favourite sulking pose. "I won't waste my time with trivial cases," he muttered.

"Fine, fine," she said airily. The balance of their joint account was still doing well from a few lucrative cases they'd recently tackled, and as long as the rent and the bills were being paid on time, she had no complaint with Sherlock refusing whichever cases he pleased. "Oh, look," she said, turning the paper to show him. "I think this one actually has a decent photo of us!"

"No such thing," said Sherlock through gritted teeth.

Joan laughed and flipped the page. "You're just bitter that your little stunt with the hats made us even _more_ infamous. Didn't really _think that one through_ , did you?"

Sherlock sniffed and buried his face in the couch cushion.

* * *

It wasn't until Joan was in a helicopter descending towards Buckingham Palace that she realized just how far their reputation must have spread.

_God,_ she thought, her stomach lurching. _When did this become my life_?

A well-groomed man in a tailored suit rushed up to meet them as the helicopter landed, and held out a hand to Joan. "Doctor Watson, I presume?" he shouted over the noise. She nodded in response and was hurried across the helipad into what she perceived was _not_ a public entrance of Buckingham Palace.

"Sorry," she said, when they entered the building, leaving the roar of the helicopter behind. "I appreciate the escort, but why exactly am I here?"

"Mr Sherlock Holmes," he replied.

"Oh god, what's he done now?"

The man laughed, as if she were making a joke. "You'll be briefed soon enough by the relevant parties, Doctor Watson."

Joan accepted this, caught up in the impressive work of art that was the interior of Buckingham Palace. The decadence made her head spin, and seemed even more impressive by the fact that she was here on – presumably – business. _Her_! Joan Watson! Having _business_ in Buckingham Palace!

The suited man waved her into a room on her left and bid her a good day, to which she mumbled absentmindedly in return. Her attention was captivated by a pile of clothes in the centre of the room... and the settee beside it, on which sat Sherlock Holmes wrapped in a bed sheet.

Sherlock turned to look at her, his expression as flat as ever.

_What the hell_ ? she gestured.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation.  _I don't know, just play along_.

_Right_. All right. She approached the faded settee, looking around at the brilliant room they were to wait in. It was certainly something to behold: rich tapestries covered the walls, a bit like the medieval ones she'd seen in museums, and she wondered just how old they really were. But that was merely a secondary thought to the big question floating around in her head since her arrival:  _what were they doing here_?

She sat on the opposite end of the sofa, looking at the pile of clothes on the table and then to Sherlock in his sheet. After a moment of uncomfortable silence she finally asked: "Are you wearing any pants?"

"No."

"Okay."

Joan let her eyes drift to the other side of the room. She wouldn't look at him, dammit, she wouldn't--her eyes caught the movement of his head in her peripheral vision and she turned without thinking, caught his eye, and—she lost it, bursting into laughter.

The whole situation was just so  _ridiculous_. Even Sherlock was chuckling at how outrageous it all was.

"B-Buckingham Palace," she choked out, when she'd gotten hold of herself. "I... am seriously fighting the impulse to nick an ashtray." That sent Sherlock into another fit of suppressed laughter, and Joan grinned. "Christ, If I'd known I would end up here today, I would have actually put some makeup on; maybe dressed up a bit."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly down at his own attire. "It's all right," he stonewalled. "Next to me, you look posh as the Queen."

"I knew I kept you around for something," she giggled. He was trying to give her a serious look, but the corners of his lips twitched upwards in betrayal. She controlled herself enough to ask: "What are we doing here? No, Sherlock, seriously – _what_?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Here to see the Queen?"

She'd barely posed the question when they heard footsteps in the hall, and then Mycroft Holmes appeared at the threshold.

"Apparently yes," said Sherlock.

Joan snorted and the two of them spiralled into another fit of giggles. Mycroft looked less than impressed.

"Just once, can you two behave like _grown-ups_?"

* * *

After their initial chuckle over the ashtray that Sherlock had nicked from Buckingham Palace at Joan's urging, the pair fell into an awkward silence on the drive back to their flat.

"You might as well ask; you've been thinking it this whole time," said Sherlock finally.

Joan hesitated. "It's just—well, I don't want to..."

"Offend my  _sensibilities_? I'm disappointed, Joan."

She frowned. "All right. What Mycroft said about you back at the Palace – was that true? Or was he just being a prat?"

"Mycroft said many things about me back at the Palace, Joan; you'll have to be more specific."

_You know bloody well what I'm referring to_ , she bit back. "Come on – he implied that you were a virgin. Is that true?"

"No, he implied that I had a lack of experience with sex," Sherlock corrected. "You ought to know better as a doctor and as a modern woman that the idea of ' _virginity_ ' is absurdly vague, and obsessed with the singular act of heterosexual intercourse. You'd do better to use more precise terms."

She couldn't believe that they were having this conversation, now, in the back of a cab. "All right," she said, rubbing her temples. "So, are you..." God, it was unbelievably awkward having this conversation with  _Sherlock_ . "Are you inexperienced, then? With sex?"

"Not entirely."

Infuriatingly, he didn't elaborate further. Joan sighed impatiently. "So you  _have_ had sex."

"I have... engaged in sexual acts," he said vaguely.

"Well?"

"Well, what?" he said, turning his head irritably. "Would you like me to list the specifics for you? Describe the precise nature of all my past sexual encounters? As far as I'm aware, that's not something people really  _do_ ."

Joan pulled back, surprised. "I—sorry. It was rude of me to pry; you're entitled to your privacy." He didn't reply, and she sensed their conversation was over.

Joan turned away, her face heating. He was right; it was not really her place, as his flatmate, to press him about it. Obviously he wasn't going to gossip with her like her uni girlfriends; that he told her anything at all was pretty astonishing by Sherlock's usual standards of disclosure.

Though she had to admit that it was wildly unfair: he could probably deduce her exact number of sexual partners from her fingernails or something like that while she was stuck getting information out of him the usual way (through sibling insecurities and the occasional post-case pub night).

_Sherlock, you wanker_ , she thought.  _I wish we could just talk about this_.

 

* * *

Less than an hour later, after Sherlock ran through a number of eclectic disguises from his closet before eventually rejecting all of them, they were on their way to Adler's residence in the high-class neighbourhood of Belgravia.

Joan looked out the windows of the cab at the expensive homes lining the street. "If I knew sex work paid this well, I would have reconsidered med school," she remarked.

Sherlock wasn't listening; he was distracted by something in his own window. "Just here please," he said to the cab driver, pointing somewhere on the side of the road.

To Joan's confusion, Sherlock didn't lead them to a house but down a wide alley off the main street, whipping off his scarf as he walked. Joan looked around for any indication of their surroundings.

"So what's the plan?" she asked. "Are we here?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Two streets away, but this will do."

"For what?"

"You won't like it."

"Sherlock..."

"I need you to rip your blouse," he said. "Not too much, just enough to indicate a struggle."

"What?" she jerked back, holding her coat closed over her shirt protectively. "No way, rip your own shirt! I haven't got a wardrobe full of them back home like you have, I've  _seen_ your closet."  


"For God's sakes," he huffed. "I'll buy you a new one if it's that important to you. Just rip your shirt by the collar – and I'll need you to punch me in the face, too."

"Punch you in the face? That's starting to sound more appealing by the minute."

"Just rip your blouse. It's not as if it's immodest; I know you always wear a t-shirt underneath."

"That's – no! That's not the point, Sherlock!" she fumed. "I'm not going to tear my  _shirt_!"

He clenched his hands into fists at his sides, looking thoroughly exasperated, like a petulant child. He turned away for a moment, as if he might start pacing, but stopped abruptly and spun back. The look in his eyes was making Joan more paranoid by the moment.

"Sherlock, don't you dare," she warned, taking a step back.

He took one pace forward, looking her in the eye. "We need to get into that house, Joan," he said.

" _Sherlock,_ " she warned. "If you come near me, I swear to god--"

"—I know you're more than capable of defending yourself, in fact I'm depending on that—"

"—if you take one more step, I'll—ahh, you  _bastard_!"

Sherlock launched himself forward, but her reflexes were better; she spun on her heel and took off in the opposite direction. But speed was not her strong point and he had the longer legs anyway, so before he had the chance to overtake her, she turned and threw a punch in his direction with as much force as she could muster.

The moment her fist made contact with his face was deeply satisfying, but she wasn't able to enjoy it. He grabbed for her collar at the precise moment she slowed and she was pulled to the ground along with him.

Joan was quicker to recover and threw herself on top of Sherlock to force him into a submission hold.

"You're a right bastard, Sherlock Holmes," she panted.

"Fantastic, Joan," he rasped. "Very – believable – I think we're done now – "

" _You – absolute – wanker_ !"

"—Joan—"

" _Not funny_ !"

"Yes, all right – now, please – "

She gave him one final squeeze that made him yelp in pain before releasing him and staggering to her feet, noting with extreme irritation that her blouse was indeed ripped and hanging open over her white shirt. She touched the tattered ends in disgust and thought about giving Sherlock a good kick in the ribs while he struggled to his feet.

Sherlock sat up gasping and touched the blossoming bruise on his cheek. "Well done, Joan," he breathed. "This will look very convincing."

She gave him a dark look and walked away without lending a hand to help him up.

* * *

As pissed off as she was about her blouse – not to mention their spirited chase down the alley – Joan still accompanied Sherlock to Adler's front door. She stood fuming at his side, arms folded over her chest.

"Follow my lead," he murmured into her ear. "And try to look vulnerable." He pushed a buzzer near the door and leaned up eagerly into the small video camera. A new expression swept over his face as he adopted whichever persona was going to get them in the door this time.

A woman's voice answered over the intercom. "Hello?"

"Yes, um, hello," said Sherlock, adopting a nervous demeanour. "I'm so sorry to disturb you, but – um, this woman – she was just attacked in the alley by two men. I – I stepped in and they ran off, but they might be back. Please, can you help?"

The woman hesitated. "I can phone the police," she offered. "And she can wait inside, if she'd feel safer that way."

"Thank you," said Joan, widening her eyes in mock fear. "I'm just – I was so scared!" She whimpered a bit for show, and she felt Sherlock wrap an arm around her shoulder.

"It'll be all right," he said, in his emotional persona-voice. "They're going to call the police. You'll be fine."

There was a muffed buzz from inside the house and the door swung open. They leaned on each other as they walked through the elegant entryway, doing their best to appear shaken. The woman greeting them on the other side was definitely not the Miss Irene Adler from the photographs.

"I'm sorry, but we're both a little, er, roughed up. Do you have a first aid kit?" Sherlock asked timidly.

The woman nodded and led them into a lush sitting room. "You can have a seat in here," she said, motioning to Joan. "I'll show him where the first aid kit is."

Joan murmured a shy thanks and settled herself on the sofa. She drew in a deep breath as Sherlock and the mystery woman left the room. As irate as she was, she had to admit that his plan had effectively gotten them inside, though there hadn't been any sign of Adler so far. Still, when they got home, he owed her  _far_ more than just a blouse...

"Sorry to hear that you've been hurt," a second female voice called from the other room. Joan quickly picked up a tissue Sherlock had given her and used it to dab at her eyes. The voice drew closer. "I don't think Kate caught your name."

"Oh, sorry," said Joan, turning up to look at the woman. "I'm—oh..." The words died in her throat, leaving her with a squeak.

Miss Adler was standing in the doorway, extremely  _naked_.

"Well," she purred. " _You're_ not Sherlock Holmes."

"No," Joan stammered. She tried to remember her cover, but her mind had gone unhelpfully blank. She was aware that she was staring. "I'm, er—"

"His absolutely  _ravishing_ blogger," Irene supplied. "I know. You're much more striking in person, although..." she approached the couch, bending over Joan to touch her ruined blouse ( _I will_ not _think about how close her breasts are to my face_ , she thought fiercely). Irene smiled, like an errant cat. "I thought that silly hat in the papers looked particularly cute on you."

Joan ought to have a biting reply, followed by a snap about how she wasn't gay, but her brain didn't seem to be cooperating. Her whole range of vision narrowed to Adler's vividly made-up eyes and full, blood-red lips. "I..."

"Shh," Irene soothed, drawing a finger to Joan's lips. "Let's wait for Sherlock, shall we?"

"Mm," Joan mumbled in reply. Fuck, that wasn't what she wanted to say. Inside her head there was a voice screaming  _I'm not bloody gay_!, but it was sounding awfully far away and unimportant...

God, her eyes were beautiful.

"All right," came Sherlock's voice. "This should..."

The spell broke instantly and Joan and Irene spun around to see Sherlock standing frozen in the doorway. For a few moments his eyes were as big as Joan's, but an instant later both the shock and his fake persona fell from his face like a loose mask. His eyes darted between Joan and Irene. "Miss Adler, I presume," he said in a controlled tone.

"Evidently," she said, the corner of her lips curling into a smile. She backed courteously away from Joan and waved towards the sofa. "Please have a seat... Mister Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock didn't move; in fact, he barely blinked. He was staring intently at Irene Adler with something like confusion. Sherlock's eyes shifted to Joan for a moment, and then back to Adler. His brow furrowed.

Irene sank into one of the armchairs, regarding them both with coy amusement.

"Could you--" Joan broke in. "Could you – put something on, please?"

"Why?" said Irene, turning those bright, seductive eyes onto Joan. "Are you feeling exposed,  _Miss_ _Watson_?" She purred the name as if it were something dirty. Joan cursed herself for blushing.

Sherlock watched the exchange with an expression of incredulity. His eyes caught Joan's for a moment and she instantly looked away. He held out the coat on his arm to Irene, who smiled and stood to take it and wrap it around herself.

"So," she said, pulling her heels off and sinking into the couch. "Tell me: how was it done, with the hiker?"

* * *

Joan slept on the sofa that night. She wanted to stay as close as possible in case Sherlock woke up disoriented again in the night. Amusing as it was to see such a brilliant, composed man in such a foggy state (Lestrade hadn't been the only one with his phone out), she worried about him and wanted to be within earshot.

It was colder in the sitting room than it was upstairs; perhaps that was part of the reason that she drifted restlessly in and out of sleep all night. Occasionally she heard taps and creaks from the direction of Sherlock's room and drowsily lifted her head to listen more clearly, but each time they seemed to be nothing.

She did get _some_ sleep, because she remembered dreaming. Afghanistan was part of it, but it wasn't her typical war nightmare. Sherlock was there. He wore a long back coat and scarf even in the desert but, to her great annoyance, he seemed completely unaffected by the heat while she was drenched in sweat. He kept trying to give her Moriarty's pink phone, but she was afraid that it was a bomb.

Stamford was there. They had a bit of schoolmate smalltalk and then Sherlock was back with the damned phone again and she kept trying to shove it away.

"Enough with the damn phone, I don't want it," she snapped.

"I'm done with it, here you are," he said, but his voice was wrong.

Then in moments their camp was overrun with enemy soldiers. But they weren't enemies, they were Americans. They were rushing in with guns blazing anyway, and Joan ran for cover, but there were too many of them and she was caught and forced to her knees.

One of them was pacing, and he said in a cruel voice: "On the count of three, shoot Doctor Watson."

"What? No," she gasped.

"One... two..."

"Please!"

"Three."

She heard the blast of the gunshot and a jolt went through her whole body – and then her limbs were caught in a blanket, and she was almost falling off the side of the couch with the violence of her awakening. It took several deep breaths and a quick look around before she reoriented herself. Her flat. Baker Street. London. Sherlock. No Americans.

She lay still on her back for a moment, letting her heart slow back to a normal pace – _just a dream –_ and groped for her phone on the coffee table to check the time. It was light out, but the traffic was fairly quiet and Sherlock wasn't awake, so it was probably still early in the morning.

No phone. Joan frowned and rolled her head to look at the table. Her phone was sitting on the opposite end, more than an arm's length away.

_That's odd..._

She sat up and leaned over the table to pick it up and turn on the display. It was nearly 6:45. Even though she was exhausted from the lack of good sleep, it seemed like a fair time to wake up.

Within a quarter of an hour, she had made herself breakfast tea and toast with jam and opened her laptop to check the morning news. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the commotion at Adler's flat the previous day. Perhaps Mycroft – or the Americans – had worked to hush it up. Surely gun-related deaths during a break-in in such a posh neighbourhood would make the news in any other situation.

Come to think of it, didn't Mycroft say that Irene Adler had been at the centre of two political scandals in the last few years? She must be well-known in the gossip papers.

" _Oohhh_."

Joan nearly leapt off the couch for the second time that morning. She spun around looking for the source of the sound before realizing it had come from her mobile... but her phone didn't normally make any noise as obscene as _that_.

There was one new text message waiting for her.

07:03:47  
Good morning, Dr Watson.

Joan frowned. She didn't recognize the number of the sender. Had she given her mobile number to anyone new recently? She remembered, with a touch of paranoia, that she had found her phone that morning far from where she was sure she'd left it.

07:05:14  
Hello. Sorry, who is this?

Joan pressed 'send' and chewed her toast while eyeing the phone warily. A moment later it lit up and she heard that sound again, the sound that her phone had never made before: a deep female moan. One that sounded strikingly familiar, now that she thought about it...

07:06:26  
You've forgotten me already? I'm crushed.

Joan's eyes widened. _How the fuck_...?

Her phone moaned again: " _Oohhh._ "

07:06:57  
How is Sherlock? He hasn't answered any of my texts.

Joan flipped open the keyboard and tapped furiously at the tiny buttons.

07:07:32  
how the fuck did you get this number  
what did you do to my ringtone?

Another moan.

07:08:03  
Do you like it? ;-)

Joan let out a small growl.

07:09:05  
no i bloody don't! stop texting me  
and don't text sherlock either

She sent the message and waited.

" _Oohhh._ "

07:09:48  
Oh well. Till next time, my dear Watson.

Joan snapped the phone shut in irritation. Just fucking great, that was exactly what she needed: flirty texts from Irene Adler. And possibly a break-in. Had she been in their _flat_?

She would ask Sherlock when he woke up; he would know how to deal with Irene Adler. They had some kind of understanding, after all. They were both _clever people,_ and they had whatever instant connection it was that clever people formed with one another. For all Irene had been flirting with Joan, once Sherlock took off with his deductions, they'd all but forgotten she was still in the room. For all the flirtation with Joan, it was _Sherlock_ that Irene looked at with that light in her eyes.

Not that she was jealous. _You're not even interested in women, Joan Watson_! she scolded herself. She would talk to Sherlock and get this all sorted out, maybe block the number if she had to. After she found out what Adler had been texting to Sherlock.

Not that she cared what Irene said to him. It was just for his sake.

The whole affair put a bad taste in her mouth, which Joan intended to drown in breakfast tea.

_Irene Adler is nothing but trouble._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scandal is definitely going to be a multi-part story, and I think the timeline is not going to be quite so straightforward. The actual episode takes place over a period of several months, so between the big events of Scandal I assume that Sherlock and John would obviously be taking lots of other cases. 
> 
> I haven't decided yet, but I will probably adapt one or two adventures from the book canon before continuing with the second part of Scandal (though there will still be hints of it throughout). There's an interesting fan-theory that Hounds actually takes place during the timeline of Scandal, though I'll probably leave that for after, since it's a huge story on its own.


End file.
